


Golden

by shauds



Series: Rebirth [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Anxiety Attacks, Blood, Gen, General warnings for Jason's backstory, General warnings for Talia's backstory, Jason is not okay, Lazarus Pit, Mother-Son Relationship, Not about Jason reconciling with the bats, Pit Madness, Self Harm, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, Talia is a good mother, will add as story progresses - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-04-04 23:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14031150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shauds/pseuds/shauds
Summary: Jason's confrontation with Bruce ends a lot messier than anyone thought it would. He doesn't make it out of the building alive, leaving Bruce to deal with the weight of his decision.Lucky for Jason, Talia's about done losing the people she cares about and she's willing to sacrifice everything to give him a second chance, only this time she's not giving him free reign to squander it.





	1. Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

> An ode to my inability to stop starting new chapter fics when I already have so many.  
> Me @ my brain: Please stop.
> 
> There's a certain part near the end of the lost days comic that is NOT cannon to this fic, I'm sure you can tell which one. That being said, please enjoy.

Bruce hasn't moved in hours when they call Dick, drag him away from the journey to the city he's only just been cleared to begin with his bum leg wrapped tightly in Alfred approved gauze.

He can tell, without being there, without so much of a scrap of information that 'something' has gone horribly, terribly wrong. He's racing for the scene in one of the spare batmobiles, speeding through the streets all the while staring at the little blinking dot proclaiming Bruce's location.

It's not moving still, and no matter how much Dick stares at it, begs it too, it stays that way. Bruce stays that way.

Likely hurt, bleeding out on the ground or already dead.

The Gotham streetlights bounce off the sleek black vehicle as he cuts corner after corner, grateful for the curfew keeping all citizens in doors.

Dangerous as it is, he doesn't wait for the speeding vehicle to stop before he's shot his grapple the building, the missing chunk of the building where the dot's been sitting all that time.

Bruce is there, crouched amongst the rubble and the smoke, his shoulders taught, rising and falling minutely with his breathing.

A grin spreads across Dicks face and he limps forward, barely comprehending his own relief.

"Batman." Dick says, reaching an arm out for his mentor. "You haven't moved so much as an inch in hours, some on before you're on an oxygen tank for the rest of the week. What happened? Guessing you didn't catch the Hoo…"

Bruce doesn't respond, doesn't so much as twitch in Dick's direction. The younger man has crossed the rest of the space, can see that Bruce isn't just kneeling; he's holding something, practically curled around the ash covered figure.

His insides drop, all the regular platitudes on the edge of his tongue. Failing to save someone in the line of duty is hard, after the weeks he's been having, god knows Dick understands, but this doesn't look like a civilian.

He has combat armor and heavy boots, a torn domino mask clinging to one side of his gray face.

It's older, but too familiar, the set of that jaw, no longer smoothed by baby fat. The dark locks curling against his brow. Oh and also there a goddamn gash across his throat, blood caking the rest of his neck, the grey fabric down at his chest.

Dick can tell at a glance what caused that gash, what had spilled all of that blood.

"Batman." Dick's hand stops short of touching his mentor. "Bruce what happened, who is this?"

Dick asks, but he already knows. He doesn't want to believe it, but the evidence is right in front of him, it's plain to see, all too clearly. The Red Hood fought like them, knew them, knew how they worked.

"Bruce please, tell me what happened." Dick is begging now, on the edge of hysteria thought he tries to internalize it, tries to reign it in so he's not shouting, not hitting, not slamming his head against the walls brining around him to rid his mind of it.

Through it all Bruce won't speak, he can speak. His hands are wrapped around the boy, the corpse of a boy that should never have gotten that large. His shoulders are shaking, one hand hovering above the bloody mess of a throat.

"Bruce answer me!" Dick shouts, fists clenched at his sides but he's ready to attack if that's what it will take to drag the words out of Batman's throat. With a growl and the knowledge his ankle would ensure his loss in any physical confrontation, Dick lunges for his mentor, escrima sticks drawn.

His attack never lands.

There a series of short beeps and Dick is being tossed across the room like a poorly stuffed ragdoll, Bruce along with him. They crash into a wall, crash through the wall. Bruce is still holding onto the corpse, the corpse, oh god it's Jason's corpse!

That's Dick's last coherent thought before his head cracks against something hard and unforgiving.

Bruce is fighting someone, something, but there's too many, he won't beat them and Dick can't move, can't make his body move.

There's a flash of orange, and Bruce lets out a single grunt of pain. They're trying to take the corpse, drag it away but Bruce won't let go. Exhausted and weak from smoke inhalation he clutches onto Jason's shoulders, then his arm, then his hand.

"She says you can keep this." A sword glints in the moonlight like a firework and Bruce is screaming. He's still holding Jason's hand, sluggishly oozing blood, but someone else has dragged the rest away. Dick tries to scream for help, doesn't know if manages it, and his eyes finally shut to the sight of a poisonous green clouds in the distance.

O

O

O

The screens play the event out before her.

Where had she been when it had happened? She can't even remember, can't force her mind to focus on anything more than the gurgles escaping his mouth through the speakers she'd been adamant he set up.

Talia's hands are her balled in her lap, nails gouging out portions of the flesh on her palms.

Very few times in her life has she experienced such anger, such abject horror. Part of her wants to wail, wants to put her fist through the screams and hide the sight, the blood, the sound from her senses.

A larger part of her screams for vengeance. Demands she go herself to that cursed city and eviscerate the one responsible, the one who dared.

That, the nightmare that plays out on the scream, it's not what she'd planned. He'd been meant to play his little game in Gotham, distract the Batman from their plans elsewhere, see for himself that he'd be rejected and come back to her.

It was Bruce Wayne's punishment; he was the one that was meant to be punished, to lose the child he didn't deserve, not her.

She shakes as she watches the burning city of Bludhaven, hopes his son was there when the bomb went off that, he's feeling the same anguish as she.

"A pity." Nyssa is there, hands resting on her younger sister's shoulder. "The boy showed promise, but he was too volatile, we couldn't have done much with him in that state. Not to worry sister, we will acquire you another pet."

"What have you had the Terminator do with his remains?" Talia asks, not breaking her eyes from the static filled screen.

"Disposed of." Nyssa's gathering up the hair that has spilled over Talia's shoulders now, drawing it, drawing it back away from her face. "I would have been a distraction otherwise."

"Of course." Talia makes herself say. "A wise decision."

"I've ordered him to wait for you, in the case you wish to pay your respects." Nyssa sighs forlornly. "If only you'd revealed his existence sooner, we might have been able to alter his course." She clicks her tongue and Talia listens to her sisters retreating footsteps, still keeping a tight rein on her grief.

O

O

O

The Terminator's daughter, Ravager is guarding the end of the hallway when Talia approaches. She nods at the girl, a small scrap of acknowledgement that might serve her well in the near future. The girl nods back, the expression on her face taught, anxious.

Talia learns why when she nears the door and Shiva exits, passing by Talia with narrowed eyes hiding something between dismissal and anger. If things went according to plan, her daughter will be arriving soon. The woman has plenty to be apprehensive about and Talia doesn't hold it against her, she can relate.

It's not the first cadaver Talia's ever seen, not even the first of one dear to her. Her mother, her father, and so, so many others she would never see again. Still, the sight of him has Talia pausing at the door, fighting to force down her emotions once again.

There is nary an inch of him without a bruise, hideous splotches and burns extending from his brow to his toes and likely beneath the towel that is the only thing preserving modesty he is incapable of caring for anymore.

His body had been cleaned of the ashes that coated him in the footage she'd made herself watch, but not well enough. There still more of rubbish clotted at the tear in his throat, the one from which his lifeblood had poured, that had taken him away from her.

Taking the arm that hasn't been mutilated on her sister's orders, she his remaining hand against her cheek. It's not hard to imagine how much he must have suffered in his last moments. Faced with the truth of the man who should have been his 'father' choosing that abomination over him.

She knows now she should not have sent him to Gotham, should not have allowed him to leave her. If she'd denied his requests, exerted more control, hadn't let herself fear his hatred, he might have lived.

Even the sweet thing she'd dropped in the Pit, if she'd waited, allowed him to be sent away instead he might have beem returnes to her when Nyssa had deposed their father.

Her blame is undeniable, knowing she hadn't been able to bear the thought of loosing another son as completely as she may well have lost Damian with how securely she'd had to hide him from her sister's ambition.

Silent tears fall from her eyes, coat the cold, dry lifeless flesh of his hand.

Then, she'd refused to lose him, and now again she refuses. Carefully, though she knows he cannot care for gentleness, Talia lays his hand down and leans forward to press a kiss to his brow, ignoring the stench of death that clings to him.

Talia gets to her feet and marches to the door with purpose she hadn't felt in months as she orders the girl to contact her father.

Soon the base will be too busy preparing for the arrival of someone realize what she does with Jason for a time, she will have to use that time wisely.

O

O

O

"The pay had better be worth this 'Lady' Talia." Deathstroke grouses as he runs through the emptier halls of the base after Talia and his daughter, Jason's cadaver strung across his back.

They turn a corner and Ravager charges forwards, her sword making short work of the straggler unlucky enough to be in their path. Talia will not any allow anyone to jeopardize her mission, not matter how miniscule the risk they pose.

The next passerby gets by Ravager, but Talia's on him before he reaches Deathstroke, reaches Jason, and he's soon just another lump of flesh amongst the dozens Talia has already ordered executed.

Adrenaline surges through her veins, making her more aware, but also more anxious, irritable, and she can't afford that. Cannot afford to skewer Wilson every time they turn a corner and part of Jason is clipped by the wall, not with the man's loyalty as shaky as it is.

The golden glow of the pit room floods the next hall they turn down, grows brighter and brighter wit every second. They're close, just minutes away when a voice calls out behind them. Wilson tosses the boy at his daughter and turns to face the threat,

Progress is slower, but still just as steady. There's a row of challengers waiting for them in the room. Shiva's students, those she believes her daughter will take command of.

Talia's blade is slices through the air, slightly off center; it misses the one nearest her by a hairs breadth. They're not skilled enough to beat her, not even near her level, but all they would have to do is stall and Talia's plans would fall through. She's more careful with her next strike.

"Pay them no mind." She orders when she sees the girl is about to drop Jason. "Submerge him in the pit."

The child, is no imbecile, she knows dead clients don't pay, but neither does an incomplete job, and they are running out of time. Ravager leaps over those blocking her way, Jason still secured to her back as she makes for the pit.

Deathstroke appears back at her side not long after, just in time for one of the metas to reach his daughter. He's there in an instant swinging his blade at the man. It doesn't connect.

Shiva has caught the blade with one of her own, fury painted across features that seem almost demonic with the golden glow at her back.

"Enough." She says, waving an arm at her students. "This is no fight of yours, return to your positions or I will be your opponent."

Talia doesn't let down her guard, she backs towards the pool, towards Jason and the guards she'd hired, keeping her eyes locked on Shiva until the last of her students leave the room.

"Take him through my quarters." Shiva says the corners of her eyes softening almost imperceptibly. "And hurry, I expect this room will soon be in use."

Talia nods and hurried forward, Deathstroke has already taken Jason from Ravager, and is lifting the boy over the barricade.

''Wait." Talia, for the thousandth time, taken in the golden glow, so similar, yet different to the green she'd dropped him into the before, and hesitates.

That had been a selfish decision, she'd know so even before, she'd done it, and it had only lead to more suffering, indirectly or no. She has to consider that this might have a similar outcome.

Waving Deathstroke off, she wraps her arms around Jason herself, lets herself really feel the looseness of his flesh pressed against her chest, the cold where there should be warmth, the tension in his muscles that is still fading as his body passed through yet another stage in a process that will turn him to nothing.

He's heavy, but at his stage, he should have gotten heavier still. She motions for a chain from one of the many winches nearby and wraps his securely around his waist, then in contrast to the harsh shove of before, Talia gently lowers him over the edge, as a mother would lower her child to its crib.

Unseen currents pull the cadaver away from her, and all those gathered watch wordlessly as it bobs towards the center of the pool. They watch, all of them silently as he's dragged further to the center and the last strands of dark hair finally fall beneath the surface.

She counts the seconds, hands wrapped around the chain, her breath barely daring to make a sound above the gurgling of the pool.

The water stirs, and Talia holds the chain more tightly, she waits.

All at ones he breaks the surface, thrashing violently as blood again flows from the wound at his throat mixing with the golden water in strings of crimson before diluting to nothing, both his hand and the quickly regenerating stump straining against his bonds in an attempt to reach at the wound as silent screams try to escape his gaping mouth. It takes less than ten seconds for the gape at his throat to heal, and with it comes his voice.

Loud and terrible, the screams shatter the silence like a freight train, hurling his pain and anger to reverberate all around them. Talia yanks on the chains, drags him back to the edge with Deathstroke's help. He girl watches from the sides, horror and wonder warring for dominance on her face.

Talia doesn't pay her any mind. Soon Jason's thrashing body hits the solid ground. He growls at them, spitting vitriol, his uncoordinated limbs flailing in an attempt to attack them. To destroy them for daring to bring his soul back to his burning body.

Desthstroke doesn't dare try to restrain the boy himself, steps back for Talia to approach instead.

Enough time had been lost to his indecision already, there was none to console or coddle him. Talia strikes out before he can escape the chains, hits a bundle of nerves at his neck and his body drops, eyes rolling to the back of his head.

However, he is breathing, chest rising and falling, and a pulse at his wrists, both of them whole. He lives, and she is keen on seeing to it that he stays that way for a long time, no matter the lengths she has to go.


	2. Newscast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dying the first time was bad enough, Jason's not handling coming back from the second time well, not at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pit added to Bruce being the one to kill him's left Jason really messed up in this part of the story. Please note the warnings in the tags.

Jason's choking, blood soaking his airways, filling his lungs. His hands claw at the wound at his throat, but it's a grossly inefficient attempt at keeping stemming the blood that's gushing out. Batman's standing in front of him, is he the one that's laughing? He won't stop laughing and Jason can't do anything to make him.

He's dying again, he knows, his mind can barely grasp a fragment of a thought, but he knows. If he could he would scream, he tries to scream screw his pride. He wants to rage at the world, at the horror he's being forced to endure a second time, alone again, but his vocal cords are gone and all that comes out of his throat is more blood, and fuck that's supposed to stay 'inside' of him.

For a second, one blindingly blissful second everything stops, he feels nothing, hates nothing, is nothing, and then he's on fire.

Unnatural, terrible, it consumes him from the inside, screams at him to get out even as it drags him back in and locks the door before he can so much as attempt to claw his way through.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, it's all wrong.

He's moving, he's not supposed to be moving, not ever again, he knows.

He knows because he's bleeding out, his throat his torn up and he has to keep the blood inside, so he wraps his hands around it and he 'squeezes', right away he can tell there's something wrong, more wrong that any other part of him is that hand. It's not his, not his, but he needs it, so he uses it anyway uses it to try and keep the blood inside.

It doesn't make it any easier to breathe, makes it harder and his face is starting to burn. Someone's shouting at him, but he can't hear well enough to know what they're saying. They keep at it anyway, they won't fucking 'shut up' and he can't tell them too because he can't get any air past his throat.

Then they're pulling at his arms, trying to pry them away, and he struggles against them, with whatever strength he has left, he struggles.

Nails dig into his hand, the 'wrong' hand reminding him that it's there and he 'screams', tries to throw the thing away from him. His head is pulled up and he'd forced to look, look when he's never supposed to see again. Then it's gone, the black is tugging on him and he lets it claim him gratefully.

O

O

O

The world is still moving when he's dragged into it again, steady and smooth, a car. He's still all wrong, he's been turned inside out and scrubbed with iodine and sandpaper, then put it him back together but it was wrong, all wrong.

His arms are strapped to his sides, hands under him, behind his back, fingers going numb. Panic sets in and he could swear there's still blood, but he can't feel it, can't get a hand up to make sure and that's worse.

The movement stops, and his eyes fly open and everything is so bright, shining in from the windows above his head and feet.

Talia's there, her face hanging above him and the horror piles on, he knows what's happened, again, it's happened again and that means it can happen again. He forces the air through his throat, scratching and burning all the way.

"What did you DO?" He demands, struggling against the tape circling his torso, kicking out with legs that have been drawn almost to his chest in the small, confined space. "Talia what the fuck have you done to me!"

Her face has twisted in displeasure, the hand that had been reaching for him drawing back. "What was needed. Rest Jason, you need time to recover."

"Recover?" His breaths are coming in sharp and quick and he still can't get his fucking arms out from behind him. "Recover!" It's wrong, that's why it's so wrong! He's dead, you don't recover from that, you're not supposed to recover from that. He's dead again, he died because BATMAN killed him.

Jason's screaming again, salty liquid pours from his eyes, some of it slips into his mouth, gets near his throat and it burns and that just makes him scream louder and burn more.

"You brought me back, WHY did you bring me back again!" He bucks up, tries to, to, do something, to hurt something. He's not supposed to be here, he doesn't 'want' to be here. She's done it to him, she's done it again, and he can't, he hates it, hates her. It was over, it was over. He doesn't want it again. He's still talking, spitting his words at her without knowing what he's saying, until he does. "Kill me, Talia, please, please don't, I can't…"

If she doesn't he'll just dies again anyway, and he can't he knows he can't handle it a third time, but she knows ways to make it so he doesn't even notice it, she can end it without him having to know. He could be gone again in an instant. The idea is enough to have him laughing in relief. He doesn't have to do it again if she…

"No."

"What?" Jason searches her face, but it's cold, impassive, unforgiving. When has she ever looked at him like that, when ever? There's some kind of mistake, isn't there. She's not going to leave him there. "Talia!" He shouts at her, but she doesn't turn back to him, she'd put the key in the ignition, started the car and the worlds moving again. "Talia!"

And he hates her again, he hates that he's back, that he was brought back, that he could come back, because he'd died again, he was killed again.

We don't kill, ha!

He's not going to let that happen to him, again, no one's going to kill him again if he has to get to off himself before they can then so be it. He doesn't have a no kill rule. His hands are tied behind his back, but that doesn't mean shit.

Jason puts his tongue between his teeth and bite down, hard. Before he feels any pain, Talia's hands are on him again, the car is swerving off the road and he's biting down on something that isn't his tongue. He tries to force it out, to shake her off, but her grip is like iron and then she's shoving a cloth into his mouth, past the blood, past her hand, still bleeding from his teeth marks, then she's winding a roll of tape over his mouth, around his head.

For a second he considers trying to swallow whatever it is she's stuffed into his mouth, knowing he could choke on it, but he can already taste blood again and the idea having 'anything' going down his throat again is out of the question.

"You will listen to me now." Talia has her bloody hand in his hair, pulling on it, forcing him to look up at the furious twisting of her face. "And you will listen well, Jason. If you attempt something of that sort again you will sorely regret it. If you are successful, I will drag your warm corpse back to the pit, as many times as it take, until you mind becomes the filthy cardboard I found you in is need be. Do you understand?"

Jason's breathing hard though his nose, nostril flaring as he glares defiantly at her, twists again and tries to break her hold, to scream through the gag.

Unfazed, she pulls on his hair again, forces him to be still. "Do you understand me, boy?"

He gives one final tug, one final attempt to break free of her, but he knows it won't matter, can tell from her tone that she's not bluffing. She'll do it. Why, he doesn't know, and he can't bring himself to care what use she thinks she's going to find for him.

Jason nods; let's himself go limp on the backseat of the car he's been squeezed into to go God knows where.

Talia's face softens, her hand roams down from his hair to stroke his cheek, cup the side of his head. "The life I've given you is my responsibility Jason, and I intend to take that seriously."

It gentle, too gentle. She's never treated him like this, never, except… He gets flashes from before, before the first time he was consumed by the burning green, and Talia's hand on his cheek feels almost familiar.

It's easier not to look at her, so he turns his head into the cushioned leather of the seats at his side. His eyes are burning, wet again, but he doesn't care.

Talia's started the car up again, and the scenery outside the windows is passing him by again. He still can't feel his arms, doesn't want to.

O

O

O

Jason's still awake, dim eyes flickering behind lowered lashes, he hasn't made any more attempts to harm himself in hours, has barely moved at all.

Begging for death, attempting to take his own life, she's never thought he'd ever be capable of such things. The mere thought as her squeezing the plastic until of the steering wheel so hard she can hear it creaking under her hands. It's not Jason Todd. Not the child who'd clawed his way out of his own grave, survived on nothing for months and still had the tenacity to fight back when her men had come for him.

More than terrified, she's infuriated at the circumstances that had led to it, to breaking him so thoroughly he'd fight to end himself. If not for the pressing need to get as far away from the compound, from Nyssa and the society as fast as she possibly can, Talia might have taken a blade to one of Bruce Wayne's own children in recompense.

She pulls over a mile from her the flying grounds, the stop nudging his head towards the front of the car. She climbs out and opens the back door of the ugly yellow sedan so she can reach him more easily. Jason flinches back from the knife, something that is almost fear flashing in his eyes and she hates it. The ropes she'd had wound around him after he'd attempted to strangle himself come apart easily and she gathers them up, tosses them aside.

There are more tears leaking from his eyes again, blank though they are, but he brings his arms from his back, straightens up so he has more space for his legs.

"We'll be approaching an airport soon. I've arranged a private jet for out use, but it's best to behave in a way that does not attract the attention of airline security." She says, eyes drawn to the bruising around his throat as she carefully unwinds the tape from around his mouth, pulls out the gag.

Jason doesn't say anything. He's brought up one of his hands and is staring at it as though it's some foreign object. Not untrue, Talia understands, considers telling him it had been severed and reformed by the pit. She decides against it and gets back to the driver's seat. The amputation was post-mortem, he has no way of knowing about it and she can't trust him not to attempt removing the hand if she tells him in his current mental state.

He doesn't react to the bag of potato chips she sets on his lap, greasy, unwholesome food though it is, she knows it's a brand he prefers.

Another episode of catatonia has fully set in before they reach the airport and stays after they've boarded the jet. She's grateful for his compliance, even as she fights to keep herself from gutting Deathstroke when he makes an inappropriate joke about Jason's baseline intelligence.

Given time, she's confident Jason will recover, as he has so many times before. Talia refuses to allow any amount of doubt to erode that confidence, she can't afford to.

O

O

O

They're at a racetrack, the entire structure quaking with the force of the cars speeding around ring, fighting each other for first place. Jason heard one of the people behind them saying how people only came to these things for the chance of pileups and spectacular crashes.

He doesn't understand that, can't they see how cool it is. When the cars pass there portion of the stands the vibrations hit him and it's like he can feel them racing 'through' him. It's all Jason's dreamed it would be when he'd been picking pockets at the gate as a scrawny street kid.

His arms are loaded down with the chilidogs and fries and popcorn he'd begged off Bruce – using the word begged only because Bruce had to put on a show of resisting him for when Alfred complained about all the junk food – and he's got such a great view.

Bruce understands, Jason's sure. The way he speeds in up the empty road to the manor whenever they return in from patrol, Bruce can't not be enjoying it.

Jason's sure even when Bruce tells him to focus, they're here for a case, then smiles as he steals one of the boys fries and denies vehemently.

To the delight of the morons behind them, there 'is' a crash not long after that, but it's fine, because Jason and Bruce are there. They're ready as Batman and Robin to make sure the racers are okay, they'll survive to speed around the track again someday.

All Jason has to do is hold the hose make sure Batman stays wet when he runs into the wreckage. He can do that, that's like, the easiest thing he could have done.

But the water stops flowing after a while, Jason panics, shakes the hose and twists the tap, begging it to turn on again. Bruce is screaming from within the flames and the water just. Won't. Turn. On!

Jason gives up on getting it to work, he runs to the flames himself, but before het gats there, Bruce is already coming out. His costume is torn, raggedy, but he's walking upright, tall and strong and unbreakable as always with the man he's saved in his arms.

The boy cries out in relief, bounces on his feet, in glee, feeling ridiculous forever thinking that Bruce wouldn't make it out.

Then he sees the figure of the man Bruce is carrying. The purple suit, the green hair, he's clinging to Bruce and Jason backs away, horror plain on his face.

"Sorry Jaylad, you're the one who made me choose." Bruce has a batarang in his hand; Jason's frozen in place when he pulls it back, and …

O

O

O

There's shouting again, her strong voice carrying a measure of authority that's odd enough coming from her that he almost obeys. But if he obeys he'll have to take his hands away from his throat and he'll bleed out and he's not getting thrown in that pit again!

So he holds onto his throat, tightening his grip, squeezing, until he's dragged out of the car, both arms twisted and forced around her back.

"Get off me!" He demands, he hooks his foot on the legs behind him and pulls as he ducks. He only succeeds in bashing his head against the hood of the car as he's lifted clear off his feet and shaken. He curls his legs up to him and kicks off the broad chest behind him.

His arms are almost jerked out of his sockets, but he's free, he tucks and rolls, ready to run, but he's scarcely taken one step and he's met with the scream of a horn, a truck having appeared in his field of vision. It's a hairs breadth from crushing him when he's pulled back, away from the highway and what would have been his third death.

"We charge extra for babysitting." The girl growls, shoving him to the other side of a pair of parked cars, putting a barrier between him and the traffic, she's yanking on his left, hand, the one that's wrong. Jason snarls at her, draws back a fist to retaliate, she brandishes a sword, but Jason's not intimidated, he throws himself forward, ducks under the blade, he wants something to bleed, to hurt, even if that something's him. Even if it's Slade Wilsons crazy ass daughter.

"Jason." Talia's in front of him, arms folded across her chest her expression stern, bordering on angry, but just barely.

His legs almost tangle in his haste to draw them to a stop, almost trip in up, but he catches himself, comes to a halt just before he would have crashed into her. She doesn't even flinch.

"Should have let them go at himself, test each other." Slade is leaning against one of the cars, his grin all teeth and no mirth. "See how they come out of it."

"Dead." Talia says yanks away hand Jason hadn't even noticed had wandered to his bruised throat again. "Fresh out of the pit he wouldn't have wasted time testing her."

"I know." Slade motions his daughter back into their car and she obeys wordlessly, glaring at him with her one visible eye, the one her father hadn't made her claw out.

Jason watches her pass by him, nausea pooling in his empty stomach. She's what, seventeen? If he'd had the chance, he would have killed her, without giving it a thought, her father might have saved her, but after he'd gone how far?

Talia rests a hand on his shoulder, guides him back to one of the other cars. She's speaking to him, her voice soft, but firm. He can't hear her, face buried in his hand while he tried to get more air into his lungs. God he should have been dead, should have never been brought back after the first time he's gotten his brains beaten out of him.

O

O

O

Talia's driving when Jason again becomes aware of his surroundings. This time his only bindings are a seat belt and he's sitting in the passenger seat instead of curled up in the back. There are trees around them, lots of trees.

The species is familiar, tall and green despite the snow covering the ground, but he doesn't care to place them specifically. It doesn't matter where he is.

Jason tries clearing his throat, it's dry, and raw, and it hurts, but he can see himself reflected in the glass his head is rested against, so he can tell it's bruised and not bleeding.

"Where are you taking me?"

Talia's eyes only flicker over him for a second, before returning to the road. "To meet with some of the league who still claim loyalty to me. The current Demon's Head did not condone my current course of action.We'll rest there for the night and go on in the morning."

So Raatko's after him now, huh, he doesn't know if that's better or worse than when it was Ras. The old man was a bastard but he'd never been as spiteful and vindictive as the daughter who'd succeeded him. If she did get Jason, there was a chance she wouldn't bring him back, but after what she'd done to Talia, he couldn't be absolutely sure.

Causing a stir isn't worth the risk when he can just wait for Talia to leave him with some second rate baby sitters. She can't bring him back if she never finds the body, and hopefully the place is well hidden enough that no one else finds him first.

He goes for the radio, but there's only the news to listen to, no matter how many stations he tunes past.

A crisis, it says, and somewhere along the way, he thinks he hears that Superboy of this universe has been killed by Superboy from another universe and he shuts the thing off, lips curling in a sneer. He can't remember why he'd ever gotten involved in all that superhero crap when he was a kid.

This universe is plenty for him; he doesn't need any more to screw with him. Doesn't need any more hypocritical jackasses when the skies over here are already flooded with them. More Batmen and Jokers and Robins.

Jason watches the car tailing them and stuffs his left hand in the pocket of the soft jacket he'd been dressed in. He just has to bide his time, he thinks, eyes squeezing shut as he presses his head against the cool glass of the window, trying to banish the images throwing themselves against his eyelids.

If he doesn't shrug off the hand that settles on his shoulder, he tells himself it's because he's too tired.

O

O

O

Jason can't eat. That realizing it takes him as long as it does is a testament to how much his body needs the nourishment. It doesn't matter what's put in front of him, he can't wrap his head around the idea of 'anything' going down his throat again, can't banish the remembrance of iron and the torn edges of his own skin when he tries, so ignores it.

The room she's left him in is small, barely furnished, windows barred, bed nailed to the ground, nothing he can use as a weapon to fight of his 'guard'. Even the remote for the TV caged in a corner is nailed to a desk.

It doesn't have Gotham's news channel, no surprise there, but Jason's willing to bet it'll be saying the same thing as all of the others. Jason resigns himself to watching the reports until Talia comes to pick him up like he's a fucking kindergartener.

The girl's paying very close attention to him, his glorified suicide watch. Jason would have rolled his eyes at her if could have been bothered. He can get away from her if he tries, easy, but that one eyed old bag is on the other side of the door and Jason's less confident about his ability to beat Slade as he is.

Might have tried anyway if he's able to find a weapon of some kind, just to piss Talia off, might still try later.

He looks at the TV again, and now he catches a glimpse of that little speedster kid, or he thinks it's him, if he were literally aged a couple years over night. There's just the barest glimpse of his replacement Robin on the fringes of one of the reports, no sign of Nightwing - they really did go through with bombing Bludhaven, and Jason takes a minute to wonder if Dick survived at all - so far, no sign of Shiva's kid, no sign of Batman.

Jason curls up on the bed and keeps watching.

O

O

O

Despite the abruptness of Talia's departure from the Society, there are already other defectors falling into ranks behind her. Those loyalists who'd been with league since Talia had been a child, loyalists of her father who did not believe Nyssa's claim to Head of the Demon.

She's both pleasantly surprised and slightly worried at the number of dissidents she hadn't noticed forming in their ranks before, wonder what would have happened had she not left when she did. Splinter cells could be dangerous, no matter whose side they were on.

One such cell had contacted her via Deathstroke while they'd been on the road, and Talia wasn't in a position to refuse there aid as of yet. Not until she's had time to rally the rest of those she's sure are loyal to her.

It seems these might be some of those, but she keeps the Terminator close just in case, his daughter watching over Jason in one of the lower rooms.

The reports they give her are promising. The One Who Is All has abandoned the search for her mother it seems, been recalled to Gotham long before Talia took her leave. Shiva went after her daughter, leaving Nyssa to scramble for the handles of her power. No easy feat is the anarchy within the Society is as bad as it seems.

She's known that Alexander Luthor was not to be trusted, he'd been too void of ambition for one who'd obtained that much power, shared it too readily for it to be anything but a ruse. Talia's sure he won't survive the crisis he's brought about whether by the hands of his enemies or former allies he will die.

Nyssa's a proud woman, she won't take Talia's betrayal lying down, there'll be people coming after them and Talia will have to have consolidated some power of her own before that.

Shooting a weary glance at the Deathstroke, she decides she'll have to cut him loose before she reaches her next destination; his loyalty is too easily bought. Talia leaves the group with an order to get her some information she can't find herself from five minutes with an internet connection, and instructions on the Terminators payment.

O

O

O

Days pass, he can't be bothered to get specific about how many, and Talia still hasn't dumped him off somewhere. Not only that, but they haven't been traveling with anyone else since the Wilsons had gone their own way. No servants, or guards, no one she could be preparing to pawn his twice-dead ass off on anytime in the near future.

They're at a hotel, one Talia deems adequate, but her idea of adequate is far removed from that of just about everyone else on the planet. The suite is clean and spacious, with a fully stocked minibar and light fixtures that could have stocked that minibar five times over on their own.

He's alone; he's barely been alone for more than five minutes since he'd been brought back again. She's always there, just at the edge of his vision. Does it count as never being alone in his life? He's not sure, but the thought can almost make him smile, how many birthdays does he have now anyway, or does he still just count the one?

With nothing else to occupy himself, he turns on the TV again. She doesn't tell him anything but he can at least glean the broad strokes from the news reports. Flipping through the channels, he's surprised o find Gotham's local news in the directory.

It takes more work than he thought it would for him to select the channel.

There's no talk of the Red Hood. Jason's old news if he was ever news at all. Black Mask is likely back in charge again. What Jason did doesn't mean anything, all the work he put in, the training, and the planning, and he's not even a blurb tacked on to the end of the four o'clock news.

Batman's still swooping around, that new Batgirl didn't join the society after all. Robin hasn't been seen since the crisis. This, all of this, Jason can handle. He can look at it and let his rage consume him, have some semblance of emotion running through him.

It's when the focus shifts to Bruce Wayne that Jason's heart stops in his chest, ice filling his veins and freezing him in place. Dick's standing in front of a pushy crowd of reporters, explaining how Timmy's been through a lot, how needs them, how Brucie can't be there, because Brucie is at home comforting his new his friend's son, it's just until they contact is uncle. He's taking them on a cruise in the pacific to get their minds off it for a while.

It's the least they can do, the least.

Jason's breathing is rough; his hands clawing at his throat again, tightly enough that nothing make it past his hands. He wants to shout at the TV, wants to scream himself raw. He wants blood, to watch something 'bleed'.

Slowly or fast and violent, splattering across the walls, ruining the fluffy white carpet he'd walked over to reach the couch. Should have killed that kid when he'd had the chance, when he'd had his hands around the fucking brats throat he should have squeezed harder, longer, never left him alive in that tower.

That was why Bruce had killed Jason, wasn't it, because he'd gone after 'Timmy'. Gone after his precious, perfect Robin. Was it worse than what the clown had done to Jason? Why Jason had been sentenced to a second death?

The TV shatters, sparks flying like the remote that flew from Jason's hand, the one that's wrong. Glass is littered across that stupidly soft carpet and Jason wants to ruin it, make it bloody and wrong and hated, just like he is. Talia will pay for a new carpet, the hotel staff won't care, and it can be replaced just as easily as 'he' can.

He's on the ground has half a dozen glass shards fisted in his right hand, tearing into the flesh of his palm, it's already wrong too, so he might as well make it obvious, might as well cut it off, because it shouldn't be there, he knows. Just like he shouldn't be there.

Bloods dripping onto the carpet, flowing down his wrist, Jason squeezes the glass tighter. Then his arm is yanked away from him, his hands gone limp and he's screaming, fighting to get away from her but Talia's hold is tight, and right now, she's stronger than he is.

"I fucking hate you." Jason's voice is weak, and he's crying again and he 'hates' it. He hates it almost as much as the woman who's wrapped her arms around him, as much as he hates himself for clinging to her like she could change anything. Like she could undo what had happened and he could go home.

"I'm not bothered." She's kneeling amongst the glass, her pantsuit is going to be all torn up if she doesn't get up, it's already been stained by his blood.

"He took them on a cruise." Jason sobs, loud and ugly and without any dignity at all. "He killed me and he took them on a fucking cruise! Why did you have to bring me back? I didn't want to come back; I didn't want to die again." He sounds so childish, even to his own ears, like a spoiled fucking toddler that didn't get the toy he wanted. He buried his face in her chest and whispers brokenly. "I didn't want to die. Why did he kill me, Talia?" He sucks in a breath that does nothing to ease the burning in his chest. "Why did he choose the Joker?"

"I don't know Jason." Talia says, and she sounds as defeated as him, her hand stroking rubbing circles on his back. "I don't know."

 


	3. Dummy

Jason still can't eat a week later, and he knows Talias getting frustrated with him. Probably thinks he's doing it on purpose, that he'd 'choose' to starve himself. He knows she's going to take action soon, he's just not prepared for how soon.

One night, Talia makes him sit in the small kitchenette of their current hotel suite, places a bowl of soup in front of him and sits down on the other end of the table with a bowl of her own, taken from the same tray as his.

It's what she'd done the one time he'd suspected in a bout of paranoia that she might have been poisoning him. He's gone way past considering things like that anymore, it's not like she'd go through all the trouble of keeping him alive to off him herself later.

He's sitting with the spoon in his right hand watching the steam lift off his bowl, the little chinks of vegetables bobbing in the broth. It smells like salt and parsley. Good enough to have his mouth watering and his stomach cramping up, demanding some form of sustenance.

Still he doesn't want to eat it doesn't want it going past his mouth, down his throat because he knows, knows from the few times he's tries before that he won't be able to handle it.

"I can't." Jason says at last, drops the spoon back in the bowl.

"It's getting cold." She sips on the glass of iced water at her elbow, she sounds bored, almost, if he didn't take the time to analyze her further.

Jason picks up the spoon again, filled with just a little of the soup, it clatters to the table before it gets near his mouth. His hand balls into a fist and he glares at the food, at the simple task he can't manage himself. Talia's leaned back in her seat now, her glass empty as she watches him.

Settled in for however long it will take, he thinks.

Jason's barely paid his own glass any mind, but looking at it now, he thinks maybe he can handle something that cold, if only a little of it, and it might be enough to get her off his back. He still hesitates before he takes a small sip, swallows as soon as the water touches his tongue.

Ice slips down his throat, past the dryness, he more than a little surprised when it doesn't remind him of choking on warm blood at all. Jason takes a larger sip, then another, finishes the whole glass. It's something; he's been able to do something at least.

Looking up, though his chest sinks when he see's Talia's expression is unchanged. It's not enough.

"Tomorrow?" He says, and hates that it comes out sounding more like a question than the statement he'd meant it to be.

She shakes her head. "The pit has kept you from starving thus far, Jason, but even it has its limits. There can be no more waiting. You've has the water, finish at least half of the soup and your done until tomorrow."

Haltingly, like it's a rattlesnake instead of an eating utensil, Jason picks up the spoon again, his hand trembling. Dips it into the bowl, scoops up barely a drop. Still he hesitates before bringing it up, can feel Talia's eyes burning holes into him.

'Just get it over with.'

He dips the spoon again, this time with as much of the soup as will fit, he brings it to his mouth, swallows. His throat closes around the warm liquid, refuses to let more than a few drops slips past. Painful coughs force the rest out and he curls over the table, clutching at his neck in remembered agony.

"Jason!" Talia's on her feet stepping around the table to reach him.

"Stop!" Jason rasps out, glares up at her with all the disdain he can fit into eyes that are burning, watering like they'd been that night. He picks up the spoon again, and chokes down another bite. The voice in his head screams that he can't, can't deal with it again, but he forces that voice down, brushes the tears away and forces the burning in his throat to the back of his mind.

It's nothing, he tells himself he's taken down whole squads of trained soldiers unarmed, and it's a fucking bowl of soup. It's nothing, nothing at all; his mind is just being a bitch about it.

He gets through half of the bowl and keeps going, there's never been a time in his life before now when he'd refused food for no real reason, and he doesn't have a reason now. Another bite, this time he scoops up a piece of a vegetable he hasn't taken the time to identify.

That's what does it.

This time his throat isn't the only thing rejecting the soup. More specifically the chunk of solid food that tries to pass to his stomach. Jason's on his feet, then kneeling before the toilet almost before he can register his own movement.

Bringing up the food is worse than swallowing it had been, so, so much worse. It's more than just the memory of pain, acidic and dark, and the smell, oh god it smells just like the pits.

He retches until there's nothing left for him to throw up, and then some. He doesn't know how long it takes for him to get control of himself again, but his sides are aching like he's gone a round with Bane and his throat, his chest, all the way down to his stomach is on fire. It takes everything he has just to stay upright, his head leaning against the cool porcelain of the bowl while his body trembles on the tiles.

Talia comes by the door and he tilts his head to look at her, his cheeks burning with something caught between rage and humiliation. It doesn't last long before he decides he's too tired to muster up the energy for either of those things and he sighs, turning away.

She flushes away the vomit and hands him another glass of iced water, as she kneels down beside him.

He doesn't give his brain time to change its mind about the water before he drinks it down, has half of it finished by the time his still empty stomach cramps. He's not willing to risk bringing it up again, so he lets Talia take the water, set it aside and draw him to lean against her instead.

"What about the water makes it manageable?"

"S'cold." Jason says, presses his brow against her shoulder, his hypocritical brain seeking warmth. "Doesn't make me think about the..." His hand reached for his throat again, but she catches it and draws it away.

Talia sighs, brushes a hand over the back of his head. She sounds tired, maybe almost as tired as him. "It's progress, a step towards a solution at the least. Would you be willing to try the some gazpacho in place of the bouillon?"

Jason doesn't answer her. His mind has already checked out.

O

O

O

The train is the second to last leg of their journey for now.

Talia's not happy with the situation, too slow, and the small two-person compartment she's purchased doesn't offer as much privacy as she would have liked for the duration of time. Another jet would have been preferable, but her own had been rendered inaccessible by virtue of being either too easily linked back to her, or sent off as distractions for anyone in pursuit to chase after.

Jason's on the bunk opposite her, curled into the corner, his eyes fixated on the screen of a cellphone he'd managed to procure sometime before they'd boarded. Every so often, he'll set the device down and eat a small portion of the chilled, bland custard resting atop a bowl of ice, never using his left hand, that he's still keeping folded in one of his pockets.

She won't bring it up, for not at least. He's eating again, sparsely and nothing very substantial, but that's to be expected when he's been so long without. What has her more concerned is the cellphone.

He's been using it to follow news reports, refreshing the multiple tabs he has opened constantly, searching for news of Bruce Wayne and his flock, eyes burning with a focus she's seen only few times from him.

After the last time he'd gotten word of the man, she's loath to think of how Jason will react when something does come up, as it must eventually.

Once before, she'd allowed him to fuel his obsession with his mentor, had done her best to stall, but never attempted discouraging him. She won't make that mistake again. Until he's stable, she'll have to keep him from learning of anything that happens in Gotham, especially anything regarding Bruce Wayne.

She'll have to get rid of the cellphone, preferably before they reach their destination.

O

O

O

She doesn't bring him to a compound surrounded by layers upon layers of security, packed with servants and bodyguards.

The safehouse is just that, a house. Fancy for sure, fancier than anything he'd have been allowed to set foot in when he was a kid in crime alley, but it was no manor. Just a house a little up the hill from a ramshackle town no one cared about.

When Jason steps out of the car, fresh snow crunches under his feet, leaves his footprints leading back down the path. He puts the hand with the cellphone in his pants pocket, separate from the one he's leaving in his jacket and leans over the threshold of the strong wooden doorway before he deigns to take a step inside.

It's clean the way it couldn't have been if it had been setting empty for as long as she's implied it's been, but there are no remnants of the people who must have aired it out before they'd arrived. His eyes flicker to the sparse tree line, frown deepening. No signs he can see at least.

Talia calls him and Jason goes inside, welcomes the warmth after even the few minutes he's spent in the icy air outside. On his way to her, he passes by a living room, eyes catching on the huge floor to ceiling window that catches takes up most of the west facing wall, looking over a frozen lake surrounded by more trees, the lights of a town just starting to come to life in the distance.

His hand tightens around the cellphone in his pocket as he stares at it for a while, not even sure why he's looking at it at all, what about the snow and the water and the skyline is so familiar.

He shakes it off and keeps walking. Not like he's going to figure it out staring through a window, even if he did care enough to look into it.

"You have a few hours to settle in before dinner." Talia says, opening a door and motioning for him to enter. "I have things to attend to, but try not to destroy anything Jason."

Settle in how? He looks around the room, there are clothes in the cupboard, warm looking, but most of it's the expensive fancy type of thing Talia prefers, the rest is soft flannel pajamas and slippers, some extra blankets in a separate drawer. There's a desk in corner that looks like it might have once held a computer, but it's been replaced by notebooks and a few pens.

Everything looks pretty much settled already, nothing for Jason to do.

He plugs cellphone in to charge, wishes he'd had the foresight to nab one with a longer battery life, but he hadn't exactly been spoiled for choice at the time, then toes off his shoes and drops onto the bed.

There's not much he remembers from the days directly preceding his first dunk in the Lazarus Pits, but he's pretty sure the thing hadn't made him as fatigued as he is now. Then again, he knows there's supposed to be something different about Nyssa's pit.

If he wasn't still pissed at her he might've asked Talia about it. But he is, so he doesn't, just drops his head on his pillow – almost too soft – and closes his eyes to grab a few hours of sleep. Not like he has anything better to do.

O

O

O

Jason sleeps often, Talia sees, but very rarely does he seem well rested. She's gotten accustomed to hearing his cries of distress at all hours, throughout the days that pass. When he wakes his eyes are immediately fixated on the cellphone, chewing his nails down to the quick while he constantly refreshes his news feed.

Daily she makes trips to the town, and offers to drive him down with her every time as part of her efforts separating him from the infernal device. There is much about the place that would hold Jason's… particular interests, not quite so heinous as the ones that broke him from his sociopathy before, but she hopes it will be enough to break him from the malady that has claimed him this time.

Daily he refuses, but he has started pausing when he passes by the training area, and she chooses to take the slight interest as progress.

O

O

O

The house has its own gym, room, a mini freaking dojo more like it, because of course it does. Where would all of Talia's ninja servants learn how to be useless otherwise? He still hasn't actually seen any of those lackeys, but they're eating, somebody has to be doing the cooking and he can't imagine its Talia. Can't imagine her ordering takeout either, or eating it.

Padding covers the floor, and there are a dozen training mats scattered about. What surprises him are the weapons lining the walls. Swords, staffs, a couple axes even. Flimsy and ornate enough that a passerby could think they were just for decoration. He would have thought Talia'd lock anything sharp and pointy away from him, but she has a pretty good deterrent so maybe his surprise is unwarranted.

He nudges one of the dummies when he walks past, listens to its spinning while he goes over to one of the rows of weapons. He lifts a kris knife off the wall and tosses it into the air, catches it and makes a few swipes at nothing. 

It lighter than the one he'd been using in Gotham, and he'll bet not nearly as sharp. There's an unexpected pang for the weapon, and wanders what happened to it, if it's still lying in that building, it's shiny, super sharp blade dulled by the fires.

He gives the one in his hands one more toss and looses it at the still spinning dummy. It sinks into the wood with a satisfying thump and sets its target moving the other way.

"Take your aggression out on the training area Jason." He mutters mockingly, as he goes to retrieve the knife. It takes more effort than he'd like to yank it out, and there's a deep score left in the wood, right under where the heart would have been, Jason runs a hand over the mark, tapping the blade against his lips. It was too low for it to have been a lethal wound on a real target, but just a little higher; half an inch to the left and it would have gone right into mister Wooden Man's heart, death within seconds.

The nails of Jason's left hand scratch at his neck, dig into the flesh where there should be a scar. Just a little higher, a little less deep, and...

Hands shaking, Jason rams the knife back into the dummies torso, this time right where the heart would be, but he isn't done. He grips the knife with two hands and drags it through the wood, carving a deep curve across the things chest, jagged and uneven.

He hears Talia's heels clicking near the doorway, but he doesn't look up, intent on the picture taking shape under his hands.

"You've found something to keep yourself occupied?" She asked, and he could imagine the bemused frown on her face.

"Teaching this Dummy to waltz." Jason says through gritted teeth, straining to force the knife deeper, then spins in around once and catches it by the hilt of the knife and continues his carving. "It's a dumbass, can't learn for shit."

"I'm going to the town, you're welcome to accompany me, the landscape might be to your liking.

"I got a choice?" Jason's eyes briefly flicker up to where she's standing, arms folded at the other end of the room.

"Of course."

"Then no." The knife refuses to keep going, no matter how much he yanks on it, so he tugs it out, rams in back it right next to his original mark. "I'm in the middle of something."

She doesn't push, but it takes a few seconds for him to hear the heels clicking again, he feels a trace of guilt, but it's flushed away quickly by irritation. She'd have no problem making those footsteps quiet as she is in socks, probably has to work to make them heard.

The cellphone in his pocket goes off and Jason abandonsnhis woodworking project to pick it up, shoves his left hand back into his pocket.

The skys over that part of the pacific was clear and sunny, no sight of ill weather, neither dangerous nor just irritating. The planners of the cruise had done their jobs well. It was looking to be smooth sailing.

Teeth clenched hard enough that his jaw hurt, Jason grabs the knife again. "Smooth, fucking sailing."

O

O

O

Her safehouse in Rome was a smoldering pile of glass and brick.

Talia watches the footage of the raid hours later, a deep frown cutting across her face.

It had been one of the larger hideouts, she'd even considered making use of it, the convenient centralized location almost winning out against the better hidden but smaller, less well guarded Spanish home she's chosen in its place.

There was no one who knew where she'd brought Jason, but that should have been the case with the one that's been raised to the ground.

"How did they find it?" She asks the bound figure on a separate monitor. One of only two of Nyssa's men her own have been able to capture alive, the other had ingested a poison before they'd been able to questions him. This one hadn't been so lucky.

"You're not half so subtle as you think." He said, voice slurred by the many injuries that have been inflicted on his face drawing the little they'd managed to drag from him. "The Demon's head has many sources, as you well know, traitorous…"

A slap across the face by one of her subordinates silences the last part of his sentence, but she doubts the insult would have been in anyway creative.

"I'm surprised my dear sister's come to find me at all." Talia says, leaning back in her seat, letting her eyes droop just enough to express disinterest. "I hear there has been trouble within her ranks. Shiva has reneged, has she not?" Talia shoots a questioning look at her man and he nods.

"As well as her league of assassins, My Lady." The edges of his lips curl up in amusement, an expression Talia soon echoes. "I hear Nyssa made a bad decision regarding the livelihood of Lady Shiva's daughter."

"They both should have known their places; the life of one child is not comparable to the will of the Demon's Head." Their captive spits, features twisted by his rage. "All who disobey deserve their fates."

"Your loyalty is admirable." Talia, says, her attention going back to the still playing footage of their attack on her safehouse just as a blade is run through the pair of decoys she'd sent ahead of her. They wouldn't get any information out of the man, and there wasn't time to waste trying. "Finish him and send the remains to my sister."

The man is dragged from her view, him hailing down curses upon them all the while; right up until his voice is cut off in a sharp scream.

"Now." She turns off the monitor in Rome and give her full attention to the other. "What have you uncovered of the happenings in Gotham?"

"We've confirmed that the papers were indeed drawn up My Lady. However, Rumors that the Drake boy is the result of an affair seem to be just that, but we've yet to gather conclusive proof with the whole of his clan still out of our reach."

"How close has that insipid reporter come to exposing this to the media?" Talia asks. If the way Jason had reacted to news of Bruce Wayne and his flock the first time is to the beginnings of a pattern, learning of this will destroy him, perhaps beyond what she will be able to rebuild.

"We've taken steps to prevent…" He pauses, turning to someone off screen, his expression flitting quickly between rage and then worry. "It seems there's been an article posted to an online blog."

"What article?"

O

O

O

The first thing she sees's when she turns into the training room is Jason's completed defacement of his chosen training dummy.

On the chest, he's carved a crude bat deep, but jagged and lopsided, he'd clearly put very little effort into it, unlike what he'd done to the thing's neck. Very near decapitated it, through multiple shallow cuts to its neck, dulling many blades in the process, one of which is still lodged in the gash he's created. The multiple arms are covered in smudges of red, dried now, so at least an hour old.

The article hadn't been up an hour ago.

After her initial pause, she goes right for the corner of the room, steps over piles of sawdust and dulled blades to retrieve the cellphone lying against one of the walls. The screen is cracked, and when she presses down on the power button, she gets a low battery warning before it powers down again.

Listening, she hears the usual sounds of Jason's nightmares echoing through the halls, muffled, as they always are when he has enough presence of mind to try to hide them.

Clutching the cellphone tightly enough to complete the shattering of the screen, dislodging pieces of the glass to drop amongst the sawdust she sprints silently towards Jason's sleeping quarters. She doesn't slam the door open despite her hurry.

Jason's sprawled over the bed, his face buried in a pillow, she's about to wake him again, but he lets out one final sob and quiets down, his breathing evening out to what would be a more restful sleep for at least a short while.

She appraises his condition from the doorway, relieved to find that the only visible injuries are his fists, bruised and not quite as bloodied as she'd thought at first. It's more likely he'd forgotten that he'd lost the scar tissue hardening his knuckles to his submersion in the pit along with the rest of his scars and hadn't noticed what he was doing.

She approaches silently, grabs a fistful of the blankets bunched around his ankles and draws it up to his shoulders. He curls in on himself then, slips his head partly under the pillow in search of more warmth, and Talia finally allows herself to feel relief.

While he rests, she disposes of the device, and then retires herself for the night.

A light sleeper, she's woken a few hours later when he's cries start up again. In the morning, she'll acquire a sleep tonic of some sort from a physician when she arranges more decoys to keep her sister off her trail.

She knows he might not defend himself from an attack if he has the slightest idea she wouldn't use the Pits on him a third time, and listening to him now, she's knows she won't.

What he's going through now, she trusts he can beat, but any worse and that faith wavers, she would never presume to force him through that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to end on a way more positive note, but it got way to long, so I had to split it. The next half should be up some time tomorrow, things start getting better there, I promise.


	4. Cellphone

Jason comes awake all at once, nightmares chasing off any thoughts of lingering in sleep. It still takes him a couple seconds to remember where it is he's woken, but not six feet under is plenty for him right now.

When he shifts his hands out from under his pillow, they tear; scabbed over cuts spilling droplets of fresh blood to mingle with the dried that's sticking his skin to the fabric. Hissing out a curse, he carefully pries his flesh away from the fabric.

This he doesn't remember, beating his fists to mincemeat, but the multiple splinters he'll have to pry out give him a pretty good idea of what he'd beaten them against. Muttering more curses, Jason goes to his attached bathroom, hands held out in front of him to scrounge up a fist aid kit in the medicine cabinet he didn't bother to search when he first got there.

When he shuts the cabinet, he gets his first real look at himself in a while, doesn't like what he sees. The closest comparison he can think of is his father after a couple weeks of not being able to find work and that's fucking perfect, isn't it.

On the plus side, the bruising around his neck is proof he's not just projecting the pain over from his nightmares, so there's that.

He spends the next two hours gingerly picking splinters from his knuckles, almost considers leaving the one's in his left alone, but decides on doing both for symmetries sake. More cuts are torn open, and he watches the blood that runs down his wrists, drops to the ground. Flashes of a nightmare invade his mind, the smell and taste of iron and dust.

His hands ball into fists, the sting pulling him back out of his mind, making him breathe again, and he looks back at the split skin, forces the fingers holding the forceps to stop shaking and digs out another chunk of wood with a little more force than necessary. That much pain should have gotten him out of whatever dissociative episode he'd gotten into, no matter what had put him there it bothers him that it didn't, a lot.

If things keep up the way they are he thinks Talia really is going to have to take his corpse for another swim. He shakes the though off and finishes tying off a bandage. Wonders how much of an abomination he'll be then, seeing as how he's already practically brain dead a lot of the time now.

Was probably brain dead before anyway, to think he could get Bruce to…

Almost immediately, he silences the thought, reaches in his pocket for the cellphone that he hasn't heard go off since he's woken. If it died again and he missed something important he's going to throw the fucking thing in the fireplace.

It's not there.

Not on charge either. Back in the bedroom, he searches through the blankets, under the bed, behind the headboard just in case he dropped it. He hadn't left it in the bathroom, the closet is free of electronics, when he goes to lift the mattress, he finds it's a lot heavier than its softness made him think at first. He drops it and scrapes his bandaged knuckles against the rough fabric, feeling a little more blood seep out.

He lets out another curse, inspects the damn binding to be sure he doesn't have to redo anything. The training room had been one of his shittier ideas for sure.

It's also the last place he remembers being. He also kind of remembers something of the mess he'd made, can see when he gets there that it's been cleaned up already.

Well, most of it. His redecorated dummy is still standing not so proudly amongst its fellows. Looks like he gave up on the bat symbol half way through. Jason runs his hand over the scored neck, whoever cleaned left the knife there, Jason doesn't touch it.

The cellphone isn't here either, he flexes his fingers and glances about again to be sure, his hands aching more deeply now he's seen some of what he's put them through. Anxiety builds when he still can't find it and his eyes flit around frantically, fisting at his shaggy hair.

He 'needs' that cellphone if he's going to have any idea what the hell's going on while he's locked away here, wherever the fuck here is. Without it, he's got nothing to go on.

Talia's voice is reaches his ears, calm with a hint of exasperation, though its plain she's not talking to him. Jason's feet carry him to the sound, through the half of the house he hasn't bothered exploring yet.

The mostly shut door creaks softly when he eases it open a crack wider. It's a study. Talia's sitting behind a desk, talking on the phone as she types away at a laptop. When she notices Jason, she holds up a finger and turns back to her work.

Jason shuts the door and steps out, he's never cared about her business life - better he doesn't know what her assassins are up to - and he's not about to start. He considers leaving to search either the training room or his bedroom again, but he knows, knows that he's looked everywhere he's actually been in the house so far, the parts of the house he remembers at least.

God, what if he went outside with it. His head snaps towards one of the place's many windows and the snowy landscape outside. If he lost it out there, it's gone for good and what the 'fuck' is he going to do then?

"Jason, you needed something?" Talia's standing by the entrance to her office, massaging her temples. "I've too much to tend to for a trip to the town today, but there are delivery services you can make use of."

"No, uh," Jason clears his throat, surprised at how rough his voice sounds. "You know where that cellphone is?"

"I'm afraid not, where last did you have it?" She comes forward, takes the hand that isn't in his pocket in both of hers and turns it over, inspecting his bandaging. "You've seen to the other one as well I trust?" Jason draws his other hand out to show her and she takes it too, tugs a little on ties to test how tight he made them, then lets fo with a curt nod."I'll have to cancel physician," she turns back to the office. "Give me a moment."

"Training room." He calls. "The cellphone. I think I left it in the training room when I was done with the… when I was done."

"I see. If it was in the same state as the rest of the place the maid might have mistaken it for more refuse and thrown it out." She seems unconcerned, but Jason feels as though a pit has opened up in his stomach. "Unfortunately she won't be back until the week's end. It's for the best; there are things more deserving of your focus now."

"What?" He takes a step away from her, feels a wall at his back. "Talia I need that fucking cellphone, I, fuck, I need to know how much longer he's gonna be on that fucking cruise." His eyes fall on the computer behind her and he slips into the room before she can block his path, leans over the desk to pull the computer over to him. There's a single blinking line on the otherwise blank screen, it needs a password.

"Why?" She asks, her tone dangerous, eyes narrowed, and Jason knows he won't get any help from her in finding the phone.

Jason blinks up at her, his mouth opened for words that should be there but he just doesn't have. She stays where she is, unmoving until he can come up with 'something' to say. "The fuck does it matter why? I need to know."

"You 'need' to find healthier interests, and refrain from using such vulgar language in my presence." She reaches over him and turns the computer back the way it was before. "I am not one of the common street thugs you associated with in Gotham."

"And I'm not a fucking child!" Jason snarls at her, draws up to his full height. "It's not enough I'm stuck here, now I gotta deal with you turning control freak on me? Where do you get off questioning my fucking interests? You didn't give a damn about how healthy it was when I asked you to send me to all those fucking psychopaths."

"And it's not plain now how great an error in judgment that was?" She gets back in her seat, pulls a folder out of a drawer like she doesn't see him flinch. "You wish not to be treated as a child then stop behaving as one, you know you've never reacted well to news of that city."

"You…" Jason growls down at her, his hands balled into fists at his side, splitting the scabbing yet again. It's doesn't get more than a dismissive glance from Talia. "You can't keep me locked up here like some Rapunzel hermit... thing. I gotta know what's going on out there."

"You're not my prisoner, you're free to go to the town and procure yourself a means to access the internet but I will play no part in your self-destructive behavior this time. You remember how to reach it. She's dialing a number on the landline at her elbow already.

"Fine." Jason storms out of her study, pauses at the window overlooking the icy terrain.

"Be back by nightfall and make sure to dress appropriately, I'd rather you didn't get frostbite." She brushes some hair behind her ear. "Procuring a surgeon would cause us undue trouble."

If Jason had still been within sight of her he would have flipped her off on his way out.

He does stop by his room to throw on a few extra layers of clothing though, disregarding his raged appearance in the mirror mounted to the closet door.

O

O

O

One look at the approaching clouds and Jason's glad he isn't wearing just those flimsy pajamas. She just had to bring him somewhere that's covered in snow, didn't she? He watches his breath puff out ahead of him every time he exhales as he makes his way down the hill, through the trees, towards the buildings he can barely make out in the distance.

The incline is sharper than it looked from the car, and keeping his footing is tricky once he's left the more level grounds surrounding the house, he takes a second to wish he'd spent a little time checking for snowshoes before he'd left the house. Crossing over the frozen lake instead is tempting, but not enough that he gives it serious thought.

He's not a masochist and death by downing in icy water is not the way he wants to go, Talia'd just find him anyway, probably has someone watching him already.

The house is still visible if he tilts his head, and Jason feels anger flooding his chest, chasing off the chills. She's been off since this thing started, and he doesn't know why, and he hates that, hates that he can't understand why.

"How great an error of judgment that was." Jason mutters to himself, kicks a branch out of his path, watches it skid down the slope, leaving a shallow imprint in the snow. What the fuck was that even supposed to mean.

He'd done well in his training, well enough that he'd gotten rid of those scumbags with the skills 'they' had taught him. There was nothing he hadn't been able to master, amongst all the disciplines he'd gone through, nothing he'd come close to failing. As much as he'd hated them, she'd gotten him some damn good teachers.

Something flitters across his vision, something dark and fleeting. Just the people he already guessed are following him, nothing for him to worry about, right. He still picks up his walking speed. The sky's getting darker; he'll have to hurry if he doesn't want to trudge back up the hill in a snowstorm.

Something rustles and his eyes go to the trees, project shapes that disappear as soon as he tries to focus on them. He tries to shrug it off, to keep going, but the less attention he pays to the shapes, the more solid they appear.

By the time he's halfway reached the town he's walking at a snail's pace, neck craned back and eyes fixed on the branches of the trees above him. He's not sure how long he's been walking, but the clouds have been darkening steadily the whole time and it's making the shadows between the branches even more solid.

Just about every bough of leaves takes on the shape of a cape. Gaps between the leaves, highlighted by snow, could almost be the lenses of a cowl.

Jason's feet slow still more, and he thinks.

If Bruce wants him gone enough to break his oh so precious no-kill rule once, will he do it again if he ever finds Jason alive?

A branch drops from a tree a few feet ahead of him and Jason recoils. Slips on a patch of ice, his bad hand is still in his pocket, and the other shoot out to stop his fall, he catches himself, but his form is all off and he catches himself 'wrong' lands with all his weight on the wrist and he swears he hears something 'click' when his ass hits the snow.

Almost numb from the cold before, pain rushes from the wrist all up his right arm. He bites down hard on his bottom lip to stiffle a shout, clutches the arm to his chest instinctively.

Before it's even registered, he's laughing, despite the pain and the cold and how fucking 'tired' he is. Or maybe because of it.

All of that training hadn't meant shit, had it? Every single one of those teachers he's been so proud of mastering woulda beaten him black and blue for a slip up like this. Ha, slip up. And he's laughing even harder. Well, all but one, but that was the one who'd slit him open and left him to bleed out on the filthy floor of a condemned building. Had dragged his murderer to safety while Jason choked on his own blood.

And that was the best kind of irony wasn't it? He'd gotten cocky, thought he could do the impossible, like he always did, and he'd paid for it. Thought he could do the impossible when he couldn't even set that fucking clown on fire when he'd had it chained at his feet. Bruce Wayne wasn't a dumbass mercenary Jason could outsmart, or a two-bit thug he could intimidate into doing what he wanted. He wasn't as indulgent as Talia had once been.

Bruce Wayne was never going to bow the whims of a crimelord in 'his' city, was never going to bow to the whims of 'anybody' never had.

Jason had practically slit his own throat in his stupidity, and now here he is, crying about it in the snow like a fucking child. He draws his knees up to his chest to conserve warmth as the wind picks up, wraps the arm he hates around them, keeps the one he's hurt close to his chest.

There's no point in trudging down to the town and getting a new cellphone. Even if he knows when Bruce is back on solid ground – if he'd left at all – it's not like there's anything he can do to prepare for it.

If the Batman comes after Jason, it won't be for anything good. No matter how many knives Jason throws at a wooden training dummy wishing they'd switch their directories, or how many of Jason's once good memories are twisted by nightmares, that won't change.

Batman doesn't make mistakes, so he can't feel regret for them. If he ever finds out Jason's alive, finds out where Talia's hiding him, and he wants Jason dead, Jason will die, and there's nothing he can do about it when he can't even make himself get out of the snow.

And Batman will find out, because he doesn't miss things like this, he probably knows already. Since when does Batman go on cruises, take a trio of kids along with him? He's already started looking, and he always finds whatever he looks for.

Indestructible, unbeatable, unstoppable.

It had amazed a younger Jason, made him feel safe and untouchable, honored even to be allowed to stand at his side. Now it just reminds Jason how hopeless the whole screwed up situation is. How useless and pathetic 'he' is right now.

Its been snowing for a while when a car pulls up, the headlights highlighting the flakes swirling around its tires. The horn honks twice, and Jason swallows, uncurls his stiff form to stand and shuffle over to it.

He doesn't ask how she knew exactly where he was, how she could see him on the side of the road. The passenger side door opens as he approaches and Jason doesn't have words for how welcome the heat that hits his face is when he climbs in.

Talia doesn't say a word, just turns the heat up and tilts the vents towards Jason so he can hold his swollen wrist up to the warmth. He figures he's put enough ice on the thing for now.

"Tripped down the slope." Jason gives the explanation she doesn't ask for, the warmth already making him drowsy. "Slippery ."

"The storm arrived earlier than predicted." Talia takes a few moments to look him over, reaches out one hand and brushes the snow out of his hair. He hunkers down into his clothes, now soaked through and tries to absorb more heat through the seat by pressing himself into it as she puts the car out of park and they start moving.

"Thanks for picking me up." He mutters.

Her eyes stay fixed on the road ahead, narrowed to make out the road past the falling snow ahead. "This road is too dangerous to travel on foot now."

As soon as they get back to the house, she sends him to shower and change for maybe the first time since they've been there. Settles him in the massive living room sofa instead of his bedroom, right in front of the fire with more blankets than he can count and a cup of iced-tea that's too sweet to not be concealing something else while she wraps his wrist. He doesn't care 'what' she put in the tea. It takes away the pain, and lets him appreciate the warmth of the fire more, makes his eyes droop in a comfortable way for once.

Talia catches him when he slides to the side, lays him down gently on the bench, and he doesn't struggle, doesn't think about the 'why' when blankets are pulled up to his chin and a hand combs though his hair.

Jason's last though before he falls asleep is, if Bruce wants him dead so badly, what's he going to do to the one responsible for undoing it. When Bruce finds Jason, what happens to Talia?

O

O

O

That night in his dreams, Jason's not the one choking up blood anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this one seems a little fragmented, its cause it was supposed to be the second half of chapter 3.


	5. Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason's not done finding there's even more wrong with him then he thought, but doesn't want to deal with them on top of eveything else. Talia worries that he might not have the option much longer.

Jason becomes more alert after he's had a few full nights of sleep, but Talia worries about the cost, suspects that his night terrors have only gotten worse without wakefulness to cut them short.

He's paranoid, more so than usual, anxious and twitchy. When before she's worried for his stillness, now it is the lack there of that bothers her. She hears him around the house, catches sight of him inspecting the security systems, cannibalizing those he considers defunct to rig up new ones. Given he refuses to make much use of his left hand and the right hasn't yet recovered, his progress is slow and the only real benefit is that it keeps him engaged while she's busy.

Even during the periods he slips into where his mind is no longer present his body goes through the motions of testing and retrying the systems he's set up, or simply patrolling the house tirelessly. In the past day alone, he's peeked in on her at work in her office at least five times, his anxiety more apparent with each visit.

He's expecting something, she knows, something that frightens him enough to get past the anger he'd felt at her presence before. Having no contact with the world at large doesn't seem to be doing him any better than the constant access he's had before.

She's taking a break, paging through a dry, implausible novel in lieu of dealing with Luthor and his inability to understand the idea that she will 'not' be returning to Metropolis to see to his company in person. It's gotten to the point where she's thought about abandoning her position altogether. If the man weren't such a powerful, wouldn't make a vicious enemy if she were to cross him, she might have. As it is, she can't afford more enemies, not with Shivas motivations unknown and Bruce Wayne having suddenly fallen off the face of thr Earth.

While concealing herself has protected her from those she already has, it's also blinded her to the formation of new ones.

Maybe Jason's frustration with his isolation isn't entirely impossible to understand. Heavy snowfall would make the trip to the town she'd need to safely convene with Luthor face-to-face needlessly long, and Jason still refuses to leave the house. Leaving him alone for that amount of time would be irresponsible until she's found some method of keeping his periods of madness in check without her presence. He's hasn't had an incident since his ill-conceived attempt at hiking down to the town, but that's not to say the streak will continue without her there to deter him.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Talia sets the book aside and listens to the cacophony he's created, moving displacing every item from the training area he can find a way to move.

He walks by the living room minutes later, his eyes widening minutely when he spots her reclining before the fire, looks between her and the blaze, his arms loaded with half a dozen sharpened weapons. If she looks closely, she can see how he's torn his sleeves on them, then dark stains of blood leaking through. It's likely he's yet to notice them himself. A least he's keeping most of the weight of his right wrist.

She raises an eyebrow at him, and he shuffles his feet almost self-consciously, looking to the glinting metal. Talia shakes her head, turns back to the novel and masks everything else with exasperation.

There's some more clanging, now nearby when he drops his burden besides the dwindling stacks stack of firewood, then moves himself nearer to her and drops himself on the sofa nearest her, curls in on himself with his hands intertwined loosely before the knees he's drawn up to rest his chin on.

"Surprised you're not reading Frankenstein." He says, frowning at the hardback cover. "Bet you get a kick outta it."

"I'm afraid there are on copies on the premises." She shuts the book again to turn her full attention on him. "Your… projects aren't sufficiently distracting?"

He shrugs, allows himself sag into the couch cushions as his eyes turn to the window and he begins picking at the cast on his wrist. "Weathers too bad for sledding wouldn't wanna get lost and wake up in a pool of crazy juice again."

"I should hope not, if you're incapable of surviving a few hours of snow the time and money invested in your training will have been wasted entirely."

"Was for nothing." He mutters darkly, rolling his eyes at the windows.

"You'll find a use for it eventually." Talia eyes the cuts in his arms now his focus has turned from her. From this angle, they don't seem deep or deliberate, just careless handling of sharp objects. "There are still many avenues you're capable of pursuing."

Jason scoffs, but doesn't bother with an argument, and makes himself more comfortable on the couch. "Too bad I didn't learn ice fishing, 'f this storm doesn't let up soon we're gonna have to eat 'something'." He holds up his left hand, a smirk curling on his lips. "We can start with this."

Talia bites down on the dread, colder than the snow outside, that's filled her chest. He wouldn't, he's self destructive, but not to that extent. Only being morbid as his humor often is. When she looks back at him his eyes are already distant narrowed to slits, breathing evening out.

Getting him a device modified to hide any news of Bruce Wayne or his flock is an option, but he would see through that too fast, find a way to circumvent the filters and dig up the information he's looking for, if such information exists. She does have agents that can plant such information, if the situation were to call for it, but the chance than he will attempt to follow up on it himself as soon as he's given the chance, risk a confrontation he's in no way prepared for is too high.

Resting her chin in her palm, she watches him as he drifts slowly to obliviousness. Without the sedative, he'll wake soon, manic and anxious, but for a few minutes, he seems to be almost at peace. For the first time in what has to be years, she laments that peace simply isn't in the blood of people like him, people like them all.

She leaves before she knows whether he falls asleep, returns to her study and her work. There are still mamy things other than Luthor for her to deal with.

O

O

O

The tea gets a little sweeter one night, Jason doesn't ask why, or what's in it, he can make his own educated guesses on the answers to those questions and he doesn't see a need to bother. It makes him sleep, and that's enough, no matter how bad of a hellscape his mind becomes, he doesn't wake up until he's gone on long enough to wake up feeling better than he had before he'd fallen asleep, the dreams fuzzy around the edges.

The snowstorm that had had her looking for him in the first place doesn't let up either that night or the next. It howls against the fancy house standing on its own so far away from the house and Jason watches from the huge windows in the living room, after having stashed the weapons from the training room in just about every place he could think of. Until his wrist heals enough that he can try getting, back into fighting shape he can't think of anything else to do.

Doesn't know what he'll do with the weapons even if, when someone does track them down. Fully armed and prepared he hadn't been able to take on Batman even after he'd worked the man to exhaustion. He doesn't know how the hell he's going to put up a fight now that most nights, just the thought of seeing that cowl again has his guts tied up in knots and struggling to keep from strangling himself. If he were feeling more hopeful, he'd come up with a convincing lie about how he'd just lost because Batman had caught him off guard, but Jason's done lying to himself.

Talia's nearby, unable to head out to the town with the weather the way it is, or at least unwilling to risk it. Doesn't mean she'd not keeping busy though, and Jason can almost feel sorry for the people he hears her lashing out at in that cold, icy way she does when they annoy her enough.

A lot of his day so far has been spent watching the snowfall outside his window, trying to come up with some kind of plan, the tiniest idea of what the fuck he's supposed to be doing here, but nothing clicks into place. His mind feels slow, like he has to trudge through a thousand thoughts before he can settle on the ones he wants. He worries that it might have something to do with the pit, might have messed up his mind even more than it already was in a different way than it had the last time. With Nyssa's 'modifications' who the hell knew?

Talia might. Jason turns to where she's reading not far off, the question on his lips, but she looks up and he turns away instead. It's something, he thinks, that he'd rather not have to deal with knowing for sure just yet.

O

O

O

Jason wakes up in a sweat, his throat burning with every breath he tries to drag into his aching lungs. Leaping to his feet, he makes it to his bathroom within seconds, opens the faucet and ducks his head under a stream of icy water. The shock of it drags him further from his fucked up head and back to his slightly less fucked up reality.

Hands clamped over his mouth to muffle the sound, he screams, stays under the running water until the back of his skull is so cold it feels hot, longer still until he can't feel it anymore, never mind his nose or his ears or his neck.

Only when it comes to the point that he might do some kind of lasting damages to himself does he pull back, fold his arms across the ceramic sink and rest his head against them, willing his breathing to even out. They're haggard at first, but soon he the pain in his chest fades and the air feels good and not like its some poisonous gas he has to keep out of his lungs.

It takes him a couple minutes to notice he's shivering and misses the warmth of his heated bed, but his shirt is soaked, water having run down his back and chest. He can't climb back into bed like this or he'll wake up feeling even worse but he doesn't feel like he has the energy to pull it over his head.

He could always stroll the ridiculous distance between him and the bath – what do people even 'do' with that much space in a bathroom –, open the tap and see how long the hot water lasts, probably a looooong time. But wouldn't going there take even 'more' energy than pulling off the shirt? And then he's have to change the rest of his clothes as well.

"Shit." He mutters, a chuckle escaping his throat at his ridiculous predicament as he lets himself slide to the floor, and fuck it, even 'that's' heated. He looks down at the tiled floors, wonders how deep the wiring is, how hard it would be to dig it out as he picks at the grout with his fingernails. In the greenish light he can see there're already some scars on his hands, probably more cuts on his arms and chest that haven't had time to scab over properly yet, they're wrapped in bandages that he doesn't remember doing himself.

It's more frustrating than the cuts themselves; the knowledge that he's so screwed up he's not only collecting scars faster than he ever has before, but that he needs someone else cleaning it up after him. Sitting on a heated floor with self-inflicted injuries and complaining about having to change his shirt like some entitled little emo rich kid.

The floors at the manor hadn't been heated, he can remember vividly getting sick one winter, and winding up taking comfort in pressing his feverish cheek against the cold linoleum floor until he'd been carried back off to bed where Bruce had wiped down his face with…

Jason shuts down the memory with the force of a freight train before it can morph into something ugly, and is about to get back to climb up and shove his head under the faucet again when his eyes catch on the window, the pitch-black sky outside. Seconds after he realizes he can no longer see his hands he can make out the outlines again. There's no light coming in from his bedroom, and he hadn't turned the one in the bathroom on when he sprinted inside.

Jason calms his breathing again, doesn't go for the faucet, or anywhere near the mirror, he can already see two dim lights reflecting back at him from the shower doors.

His breathing hitches and he shuts his eyes, keeps them closed when he drags himself up of the ground and blindly crawls back to his bed. He climbs in and pulls the wet shirt over his head, then buries himself under the blankets.

Whatever it is, he doesn't want to know, doesn't want to deal with. He doesn't know how long it takes him to calm down completely, start to feel drowsy with the transition from freezing to warm, but when he opens his eyes, lets his head out from under the blankets, the room is dark as it ever was. He snakes out a hand to turn on the dim light at his bedside. He'll make sure to keep it on from now on.

O

O

O

Talia's livid, seething when she gets the news, and she knows her people have noticed it despite the tight hold she's been keeping on her reactions in her dealings with them. Nyssa is searching for something, something that is neither Jason nor Talia but its plain she believes it will be just as effective as getting her hands on either of them.

She's lost two more safehouses already, one of them uncomfortably close to the one she was making use of currently.

Nyssa knew things Talia had never told her, and she had kept a great many secrets from her sister despite all that she had divulged. There was a mole, within Talia's ranks, someone high enough to have access to that sort of information. While narrowing down the list of suspected parties it also made them hard to investigate covertly and she still didn't have the recourses to waste throwing at the problem without immediate results.

There were those who believed there more stake in Nyssa's claim than Talia's, many for reasons other than the age the older of the two held over her. Talia had to work fast at finding a way to override those reasons, consolidate her own power before anything else untoward happened.

The storm is still ongoing, still making the roads treacherous even by daytime, taking to the skies unthinkable unless absolutely necessary and it's become plain that what she can do in secret and from the house alone has become insufficient.

This feeling of powerlessness, while not entirely new, is incredibly disconcerting given the circumstances. She'll have to move them to a more centralized location soon, one where something so out of her control as the weather doesn't run the risk of everything she's working towards slipping away.

Somewhere in the house, there's a crash, loud enough to startle her from her thoughts even before the lights flicker. She takes a few minutes to calm herself before she gets up to see what he's done now.

O

O

O

Talia's pissed. Jason can tell, and it worsens with every day that goes on by. Could be the weather, could be her little assassins aren't behaving, or that somebody killed a bunch of her little assassins, could be that he utterly wrecked the mats in one corner of the training room the other day; he doesn't know and doesn't really care. For a while, he contemplates egging her on, seeing if he can push her far enough to leave him or ship him off somewhere so he can slip away.

Then he passes by her talking down to someone on the other end of her phone, her brows bumped together in a scowl directed at the half eaten sandwich sitting on the corner of her desk. For some reason, the idea of Talia having something that simple for dinner feels off, maybe a quick lunch, but not dinner, not when it's freezing outside.

He tries so hard to shut his mind down whenever he eats that he barely even notices what it is that he swallows down other than that it's iced and soft. Nothing he can see her ever eating, and he hasn't noticed anyone coming around the house since the storm started up. That meant no food deliveries.

Something a lot like worry nags at the pit of his stomach and he goes to the kitchen, a room he's barely set foot in during their stay at the house. It takes him a second to locate the pantry, thankfully stocked with rows upon rows of non-perishables. There was still bread, only going a little hard, and milk and a few vegetables in the fridge. When he looks around a little more, he finds some cooking equipment, and the stove works fine.

With a relieved sigh, he leans against the countertops, tugs a hand through his hair and winces when it snags on the knots. There's plenty laying around for her to find something better than a sandwich she's definitely considering nuking for dinner.

One of the first signs of Catherine's slipping was warm, cooked food being replaced by things that could be thrown together in a couple of minutes, then eventually losing interest in what they ate altogether and leaving it to him to try his hand at meal kits and heated tins of soup. It's irrational, and he doesn't know why he's comparing that to Talia, he knows she would never…

Jason bites his lip and twists the knobs on the stove, listens to the howl of the wind outside. It's not the same. Talia using the thing for its intended purpose would be like something out of that creepy book where the woman sews buttons over people's eyes. She's more likely to scowl at the food until it cooked itself than to even attempt it herself. The idea of that being what she'd been trying to accomplish with her sandwich is enough to draw out the first genuine amusement he's felt since before he'd gone back to Gotham.

He snorts before he even realizes it he's chuckling, moving back to the pantry to survey the ingredients again. Now he can do much better than the mac and cheese of his ten-year-old self. He has to if he expects Talia to eat it at all, will probably thinks it's poisoned too.

O

O

O

The crash turns out to be a chair breaking under Jason's weight because he's tried balancing on the back of it to reach – Talia raises her brows at the canisters held loosely in his hands – the spices on the top shelf of the pantry?

She stops before entering the room, the smell and sound of something sizzling in a pan on the stove catching her off guard. Sleep deprived as she is, her first thought is that he's really decided to make a meal of his left hand, but a quick glance at his hands, both of them, wrapped around the cardamom and ginger drive that thought out before it's complete.

"Ya got millions in the bank and couldn't have sprung for some better furniture?" Jason looks up at her as he rises, narrow eyed as though he expects it's her personal intervention and not his childishness that has caused his injury.

"I wasn't expecting someone of your size to attempt substituting it for gym equipment." She folded her arms and pursed her lips. "You've grown bored with your other projects already?"

"I've 'grown bored' of your cranky ass yelling me awake every five minutes." He says, but for the first time, since he's been fully conscious there's no bite to his voice. She studies what she can see of his eyes to make sure that he really is fully aware.

"I've warned you off your crass language Jason." She hadn't once spoken loud enough for him to hear unless he was deliberately listening in, and rarely even then, that one thing she was certain of.

"Or you'll lock me in a cabin in the woods?" He says leaning over the stove to lift the lid of a pot boiling behind the pan. She doesn't waste her breath reminding him that the only thing keeping him confined to the house is himself, not with a blizzard raging outside. "Anyway, figured it was cause your ninja cooks or whatever couldn't get in." he replaced the lid with a hum then moved on to sprinkling the spices into the pan. "This'll be done in like, seven minutes, tops."

"It's the delivery service that hasn't been able to reach us. I would expect more from anyone under my employ." She keeps her suspicion from her voice as she seats herself on one of the 'undamaged' chairs at the table. "They're being kept unaware of out location for security reasons."

"Yeah?" He shakes pan, his jaw clenching as he tenses up, his once steady hands trembling almost imperceptibly. "What, you kidnap one of Liam Neeson's kids or something."

"Not to my knowledge, but I'll have the possibility looked into." For some reason that gets a barely concealed snort of amusement out of him. After a some moments of consideration she speaks again. "It seems I've inadvertently begun a war with my sister."

Jason relaxes, dropping almost all the tension from his shoulders at once. So it's not the league he fears, she's not sure if that will make calming him easier or not.

"Inadvertently." He mutters, shaking his head. "Since when do you do anything 'inadvertently'?"

"You're under the impression there exists a human who has not?"

There's no immediate reply as he drains water from the pot and lays the pasta in a plate, then pours the contents of the pan over the top and sets it in front of her.

"Maybe." He sits across from her, eyes turning again to the windows as a hand drifts to his throat. "Some things just can't be accidents, huh?"

She has no answer for that, none that will satisfy him, so she doesn't attempt it. At a glance, she can't identify all of what he used for the meal he prepared, but she's familiar with what ingredients would have been available and is pleasantly surprised he's managed to concoct something palatable. "I was unaware you were in possession of any culinary skills. This is impressive Jason, truly."

The compliment pulls a brief smile out of him and pulls his attention back to her. "Yeah, well, you gotta like it. Not like you got a lotta options till the blizzard dies down."

"With any luck it will be soon, I would hate for us to be without adequate seating for the duration of our stay here."

"Wasn't my fucking fault." He growls under his breath and hunches into his arms, his expression more a pout than anything.

She doesn't have time to be appropriately amused before the lighting flickers again and she sighs, again regretting her choice of safehouses until she looks back at the plate of food, a sign of progress she might not have gotten otherwise.

She'll decide once the weather calms some how much longer she can wait before moving them to a more centralized safehouse. The risk is worth it, if its the cause of this fledgling stability. There's no way of knowing how it will hold up once he's thrown back in to the world.

For now, she enjoys having a substantial meal for the first time in days as he sits across from her picking at the frozen juice he found at the back of the freezer.

He's improving, and for now that's as much as she hopes for.


	6. Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talias might have gotten a tiny bit overprotective, well by her standards as least, Jason is a trained... whereever he counts as here.

He's watching the snow, swirling softly by the window, now that the blizzard has passed and Jason can see the sky, grey and still dropping down thin white flakes, but visible. It feels off. How many days have passed isn't something he bothered to keep track of, and now he is regretting it. For however long it lasted, there was just the house, the few things in it that he could bring himself to stay still long enough to mess with. The only thing past the curtains was a wall of either grey or black.

Another blizzard is set to follow on the tail of the last one, at least that's what he gathered from the distorted voices that broke though the radio he'd spent a few scattered hours repairing.

Anyway, the important thing is that snow lessens for a while, the supplies more than last and before Jason has the chance to make another joke about eating his hand, the roads have cleared enough to make trips to the town possible again. Either Jason or Talia could have gone anyway, if they'd needed to, but she was trying to keep as low a profile as she could, even on the slopes of a Spanish mountain.

She's going today, and like always, she asks Jason if he wants to go with her. He watches her reflection in the glass of the window, draws a smiley face over her frown in the condensation, and for the first time, Jason feels he's had enough of the snow and the same walls as he can take. He doesn't like not knowing where he is, what's happening around him, it's unsettling when before he's always kept his fingers on the pulse of anything that could have remotely affected him. At the same time, his two deaths – god, 'two deaths' he was so fucking getting another birthday out of this – were proof enough that thinking he knew what was coming didn't count for shit.

So Jason tags along, gets a look at the 'lovely' little town Talia's secreted them away in. Just from the car drive down to the town, he can tell the place has twice as many problems as some big cities four times its size. There are enough people begging on the sides of the street to give crime alley a run for its (lack of) money. And off in the not so distance are a couple of hill top houses that just scream 'money' way more than the one Jason's been living in.

His breath quickens and there's a prickling under his skin that he hasn't felt in forever. If he lets it get any stronger, he's worried it'll slip past the barely there reigns he's lashed onto it and run loose. That happens, and he's positive he'll have more than a wrecked mannequin on his hands. If he can bring himself to care more, he'd be worried. Coming to town is a bad idea, but he's already there, and doesn't have the energy to walk all the way home, doubts Talia will be willing to turnaround and take him back now.

He turns to her, silently questioning why she's decided to bring them here of all places and not someplace with all the smarmy cafes and five star hotels her heart could dream of. Her eyes stay on the road though, no hint of her supplying any information without prodding, so Jason labels it as unimportant and rests his head against a window until they finally pull into a parking lot.

The edges of his vision feel foggy as he watches the people moving hurriedly in the cold weather, some watching their feet, others looking at any one passing them too closely nervously, puffing themselves up and trying to look threatening. A fair few watch Talia's fancy car, and her state of dress when she climbs out, with a familiar glint in their eye that Jason 'really' doesn't like. That's the part that convinces him to actually climb out of the car and follow after her instead of letting the fog cloud over his mind completely and pull him to sleep instead.

It's still hard to focus for a few minutes, but he gets the gist of what Talia's telling him, about updating the lists of groceries that get delivered, canceling the meal orders if he wants to keep cooking. She's too busy, wants him to do it, since he's there. Jason doesn't catch the address or any directions if she gives them, but he can find the way himself, so he nods along and waves his hand dismissively as he heads off.

O

O

O

'After the way our previous arrangement ended, I'm sure you can understand how it makes me… nervous that you won't say anything about what you've been doing.'

Talia glances up from the data packets she'd sent to her subordinates now that she's free of that house. Luthor's mouth is drawn into a tight, thin line.

"I can assure you I will be doing 'nothing' to aid that man in any capacity for a great while." She lets the venom in her chest coat her words. She has to make him believe her, to understand that what benefits the company benefits her, as she'd been working to make clear from the onset.

Being the CEO of LexCorp will grant her connections she that would at the very least require a great deal of time to form without, and to throw Nyssa from her seat of power will take all the connections she can grasp. The pursuit from the league has either slowed, or moved on to something more covert, if Talia can trust what her people tell her, but only a fool would see that as a chance to relax.

'Your trustworthiness aside, there are projects that need direct supervision I find myself unable to give my full attention to.' He leans back in his seat. 'Your ability to handle these things is the foremost reason you were hired. If you can't do your job soon I'll have to find someone else to fill the role.'

"If that were possible I don't doubt I would have been replaced by now." She says hitting send on the email she's just finished typing up and starting the download for the new data packets she'll have to look though. "I will inform you when my circumstances allow me to meet with you personally, now if you'll excuse me there are a great many things that must be seen to with the limited time I have remaining for this session." 

'Two weeks, Miss Head, you're not so irreplaceable as you think.' Lex holds up two fingers for emphasis and his screen blinks out.

Talia would spit out that neither is he, but it's a good thing he's gone offline and removed the temptation. Luthor, as infuriating as he can be, is a powerful ally even discounting his political position. While not much of a threat as an enemy, losing that connection over a childish tantrum would set her back 'too' far.

Talia gives herself a few minutes to calm down before she contacts the heads of LexCorp's various departments directly. She's too burned out to deal with them effectively as she is. Her hands move to massage the sides of her head and her eyes flicker to the door, wondering where Jason's gotten to.

Perhaps leaving him alone on his first venture into the new town was unwise. No, with every minute that passes by, she becomes more certain it was unwise. He knows nothing of the land, the people. Despite his training, he's not stable enough to be left on his own.

She stands from her seat at a speed someone else might have called abrupt and makes for the door. Nyssa's apparent silence could be because she's already found Talia, has decided on making an example to punish Talia the way she'd done to Talia when she'd been looking to rattle their father.

This pit has destabilized him enough; Talia doesn't believe his mind will survive anymore intact.

The car is where she's left it, Jason nowhere in sight, and when Talia notices the signs of disturbance in the surrounding snow, the flecks of blood she could almost miss, her heat, stilled in her chest for a second, could almost match it for temperature.

Then Jason appears from around a corner, some sheet of rumpled paper clutched in his hand and the fear morphs quickly to anger as she folds her arms and waits for him to approach. He doesn't seem to notice her, even a meter apart. She's has a scathing retort on the tip of her tongue, a dozen strings of words to follow it, but she gets a closer look at him and they die out.

His hands are bruised, bloody, and there's a sense of physical exhaustion about his body on top of the mental she's become used to.

"It's been barely an hour; I would have thought you capable of keeping yourself from mischief at least that long." She says, lifting his hands to insect the damaged. He doesn't resist, and when his eyes meet hers, they're dulled, not completely out of focus, but not entirely fixated on the present either. "What happened?"

He looks at his own hands uncomprehendingly, flexes his fists and watches the beads of blood seeping through the cuts. 'Something' flickers behind his eyes before he lets it go and shrugs. "Think they wanted the car, or..."

"They?" She presses, it wouldn't be the first time, but her installed security would be more than enough for any of these people, Jason's intervention shouldn't have been necessary. Shouldn't have left him tbe way he is now if they were common theives.

He just shrugs again and looks down at the sheets of paper; Talia pries them out of his hands and recognizes the local newspaper. There's nothing in it relating to Bruce Wayne or any of his, just the unimportant goings on of the town and little national politics. She doesn't catch anything that could have set him off in it.

"Have you updated the grocery deliveries?" She tosses the paper into a nearby waste bin; it falls through a hole in the bottom and blows away with a gust of wind only seconds later.

Jason nods as he watches the papers, perhaps considering the merits of chasing after them even as he lets Talia lead him back inside. She'll have to check the deliveries herself later.

The LexCorp employees unlucky enough to deal with her after that are very, very thorough and productive over the next few weeks.

O

O

O

"… visit him every few months and he seems perfectly happy, or as happy as someone like that can be…"

There's something cold in his hand, making it numb even through the gloves, and a sweet taste in his mouth.

'… reason as busy as you should have to spend the rest of your life keeping watch on your backwards…'

Fuck he's tired, can feel bruises forming under his clothes, and the back of his hands sting like a lot. The hell has he been doing?

Talia's besides him, looks angry, her face set in the cold furious way it got right before she out a knife through the chest of someone who had 'really' gone and pissed her off. Jason looks around for the culprit, expecting some kind of show, but all he sees is a pair of middle-aged woman in her path.

His studies them, his mind leaping to catch up to the conversation he's caught nothing of. He's holding a partly frozen milkshake it looks like, standing just outside of a café, beneath a sign proudly proclaiming its prominence in this much nicer part of town. He's never seen it before. Fuck this is bad; it's one thing for him to lose a snatch of memory here and there at the house, but this? This shit was dangerous. He couldn't be doing stuff like this when there were actual people around for him to, fuck what if he'd gone off one someone the way he had that practice dummy?

"What happened?" He asks and Talia's eyes snap to him, off the women who are now also looking at him. "Where are…"

"Having lunch, you'll do well to take better note of your surroundings." Talia tells him dismissively and waves for him to follow as she makes to walk off.

Those women are still looking at him though, and Jason frowns at them while he runs the parts of the conversation he can remember through his mind. 'Backwards'.

"Wait…" He plants his feet and turns his eyes fully on them, they look nervous now, and there's a green film over his vision that somehow makes things clearer instead of harder to see, his mind crystal clear for the first time in what feels like forever. "You think I'm…"

"Jason." Talia calls, a warningly, looks ready to put herself between them and him. The women look afraid now, their jewel covered hands shaking, one clutching her chest. "Come, 'now'."

It takes barely a second for his mind to dim down again and he turns to follow after her, does his best to ignore the chattering surrounding him, too many eyes and breaths and voices. It's almost too much, almost makes him just want to…

The car door shuts and everything outside is dimmed. Jason looks down at the milkshake still in his hands, he throws it out the window and tries not to think too much of the sweetness, the full feeling in his stomach that feels as foreign to him now as it has after his first meal at Wayne manor.

The memories bombard him without warning, slamming against the fragile walls of his psyche as he tries to shut them down. Pot roast, pork and potatoes and… He lets out a cry, cupping both hands over is mouth to muffle it. Casts his eyes around frantically to find something, anything that will make it go away, but the snow and the world and everything is outside the car, and he's stuck inside with just himself and his head and Talia, whose locked the door he's now frantically tugging on and…

"Fuck…" He breathes the word out, curls his legs up to his chest, he gets mud and ice of the leather seats, focuses on that, on digging his heels into the plush fabric, wonders for a second if pushing down hard enough will make his whole body sink under it. What will…? It's snowing again, or, did it never stop? How much did he really eat before he came too? Was any of it warm? He regrets throwing that milkshake out already. It was cold, he needs something co… There's a soft whirring coming from the air con, warm air blowing across the car to him, hitting his soaked face. His mind keeps jumping around from thought to thought, but he tries, tries to force it to stay on the air, then he hears Talia's voice, doesn't notice what she says other than that it's not English.

The rhythm is familiar and he latches onto the words, known he can understand them even if he 'can't' right now. Trying to decipher it steadies his mind enough that he notices when the car starts moving again, she's done talking though. His head thunks against the window, and he watches his breaths condensing across it, clouding hid his view of the world outside for a few seconds before it recedes, then returns when he huffs out another breath.

"How often does that happen?" He asks, not looking at her, he's not talking about the panic and she knows it, he's worried about the other thing now, the skin off his knuckles.

"Fairly." She flicks on her indicators and changes lanes. "You'll not be left in public without supervision until it passes."

"Passes." He repeats, dark amusement flitting though his chest. She says it like it's so simple, and with her, who the fuck knows, it probably is. With her screwed up family and their mystical bullshit, there was no telling what she knew. It rankles, him the way she phrases it. 'Without supervision.' Like he's a kid, or worse, a witless head case that should be sent away and looked after.

He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the side mirror, not very clear, but he can tell he looks scruffy, clothes sagging on a frame that was thinner than the one they were bought – made, who knew – for. He angles his head away, to look outside the windscreen instead of his window. It's not what he's supposed to look like, what he has looked like even a few weeks ago. How long has it been since he's hated his own reflection that much?

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he hasn't grown to look just like…

O

O

O

It's the lack of noise that prompts her to check up on him. Since they returned to the house, he's been morose, distant in different way that his usual periods of mindlessness. After she helped him tend to the cuts in his knuckles he retreated to his room and hasn't emerged since.

She's barely made a dent in the parcels she has to work through just to catch up with everything she missed during the blizzard. There's a lot of it, and most can't wait, some she's already too late for and she's so sucked into the tedious process that at first she doesn't notice it at all, the complete lack of sound coming from within the house.

When awake, Jason wanders around patrol the house for anything he deems a threat, rarely, he'll be still for a few hours, but it never last long. When asleep, his nightmares make his position on the premises more noticeable than the loudest noises he can make.

Neither has reached her ears since a short while after their return.

She's passing by his room when she catches her first snatch of sound from him. A soft scrapping noise she can barely hear at all. From the open door, she catches a glimpse of just his foot peeking out through the doorway of his adjoined bathroom.

A few long strides to reach him. Less that a second to note the discarded razor, blades coated lightly in blood. One second to feel the now familiar rush of what she's beginning to identify as panic, another to see that he's breathing, too hard and fast, the sounds smothered by the hand he has leaving bruises over his jaw, restricting him from breathing through his mouth and restricting his airflow to just his nose. His skin has already turned pale, sallow, an almost bluish color, His other hand is gripping his throat, his tight cause most likely the cause of his own skin tone.

She doesn't realize most of his face is clean shaven until she'd already taken a step nearer him and his flickering eyes fixate on her as he presses his back further into the wall, rearing 'away' from her.

"Slipped." His voice is higher, strained and his eyes flicker to the razor discarded just a few feet from him. "The… the…" the hand around his throat tightens. "razor slipped."

Talia decides not to focus on the lines running down his face. Slowly, so terribly slowly so as not to startle him further, she steps over him to retrieve the medical kit from the cabinet above the basin. Just the fact that she's not rushing makes him loosen his hands, if only slightly, by the time she's crouched next to him.

He still resists when she pries the hand away from his throat completely, but he's too exhausted from however long he spent sitting there before she came across him for it to make much difference. The cut is shallow, didn't have much time to bleed at all. More concerning is the bruising, dark purple splotches all along his skin that had been faded to little more than a yellowish discoloration were now angrier than ever. She still treats the cut as though it's serious, disinfects and dresses it just tightly enough for him to feel the bandages against his skin.

She gives him the sedative directly after, a full three hours than she would normally, takes him to the living room, on the couch before the fire in place of his own bed, so he's easier to hear from all around the house.

His hands are still around his throat, both of them now, but not tight enough that prying them away his necessary yet. She sits close by a novel she doesn't read in hand as she waits for him to fall asleep. It takes longer than usual, and she considers the possibility that he's growing a resistance to the drug she's been using, that she might need to find something new.

Taking him to the town, leaving him there had been a grave miscalculation, one she couldn't repeat. It's clear he's incapable of being left to his own devices for any length of time during which he can cause himself harm. She 'had' to conduct her business in the town, where she all communications could be bounced around, routed and near impossible to track, doing so from inside the house was too dangerous, but if she couldn't leave him at the house, and the town as too much for him…

"Talia…" Jason mumbled, his voice slurred, head shifted just enough to put her in his line of sight.

"Yes." Her hand trailed to brush aside a curl of the too long hair that had toppled over his eyes.

"You're 'coddling' me." He turns to bury his head in the cushion he's holding to his chest and she can't tell if he's amused or irate, his next words muffled almost beyond recognition. "You didn' do this b'fore, 'm not a kid."

She blinks down at him; at the hand she didn't notice is taking hold of his blanket, drawing it up tighter about his shoulders. A comment on how his childishness is to blame almost leaves her lips, but she can see the situation clearly enough to tell that he's not entirely at fault. Already she's coming up with plans to keep him under constant supervision, closer even than that she has on her son, a full nine years Jason's junior.

Part of her reasoning for this town has been the large amount of injustices she knew would incite him to action. Hoping there would be an event to snap him from the madness this lazarus has caused the way it had his previous sociopathy, all the while attempting to shield him from just such an event by keeping him contained and sheltered. It has been easy, to leave him to his training, when he's been strong and determined, no matter her feelings of the focus of his determination. When all she'd needed to reassure herself were the reports of his progress, accomplishment after accomplishment. It isn't working, that much an imbecile could surmise, for every sign of improvement there s something that sets him back.

She has to push him, but his overreactions to the most minor of triggers, his casual self-destruction, and sheer inability to function on his own. Without that will to survive, he won't. Pushing him too hard could lead to yet another death for him, but this, this 'coddling' is doing little, if anything to help him.

The novel is set aside as Talia rest a hand against her brow and leans into her seat. There is a balance to be struck here, and the situation is too delicate to allow for much leeway. His breathing has evened out by now, and she looks down at him, in that almost peaceful state. Not for the first time, she thinks again of what could have been had she let her father send him away, waited the few years the man had had left. She could have gotten that Jason back then, but for the first time, she wonders if she would have resorted to the Pits again had his mind not come to rights then too.

Dwelling on questions she may never have answered will help the situation nothing. After checking one final time to be sure he really has fallen asleep, she checks turns down the lights, out of habit she dims it just enough that the room will remain visible should the fire die down. Her hand hovers over the dial. A fear of the dark is unreasonable, one of the things Jason will have to overcome if he's to recover and leaving him with constant lighting will do nothing to encourage that.

Her fingertips rest against the fitting for just a moment before she pulls it away again. A minor thing such as this can surely wait. One task at a time, she'll tackle his most serious issues first and work from there. The lights stay dimmed when she goes returns to her study and the work she's yet to complete.

Two weeks is the goal she sets herself. In two weeks, she will remove them from the house and test whether Jason is capable of keeping himself grounded and uninjured for any substantial length of time.


	7. Axe

After she'd taken him to the town, Jason ceases roaming the house, doesn't check on the security measures he's installed, having become wither satisfied with them, settled on them as the height of his capabilities, or he's decided he has no use for them.

He still prepares meals he never partakes of, and then returns to his room where she hears nothing from him for the remainder of the day. When Talia looks in on him, all she finds is a still lump vaguely outlined by the many blankets piled on his bed. The lack of the ungodly racket he'd made before leave the premises feeling too still, as though a corpse again accompanied her in her sister's morgue.

The turn she's been expecting not long ago doesn't come, Jason has stagnated, in his progress; grown content to sleep his days away both his days and nights. Talia is a patient woman, and under different circumstances, she might have given him more time, left him to find his own purpose as he had before.

Now, however her time is short, she fears she will not be available much longer to watch over him personally, and never has she had an agent who could keep up with him when he wished to disappear, something that before had been an annoyance could prove fatal without some great improvement in his condition. Were he to regain some small will to keep himself living, or she could find someone up to the task, Jason had still responded best to her, even when mindless and seemingly incapable of caring who's company he was in. Handing him off to another would stall his progress perhaps halt it all together.

She did not return him to the world to have him remain a lifeless husk for the rest of his days, never tapping into his potential.

For two days, she leaves him to wallow, a reward for the comparative lack of blatant self-destruction he's exhibited. The bruising heals fast, aided by the short time that has elapsed since his most recent submersion in the pit. By the third day, it may as well have never been there at all, yet he still hasn't shown any initiative to do anything but loaf around. Talia's given him all the time she can spare for this, so she takes the matter into her own hands.

"Jason." She pulls the cord to draw the heavy drapes, flooding the room with the snow-brightened sunlight and allowing her to see the mess he's made of it in more detail. Her nose wrinkles at the nest of clothing scattered about, the many glasses of stale water balanced precariously on and around his nightstand.

There's a malcontented grumble from beneath the mound of blankets, but nothing else.

"The time for wallowing in bed has passed, this behavior is unacceptable." She comes to stand besides the bed, stepping around the clutter on the ground, her heels clicking loudly enough for him to track her progress.

"So?" The blankets shift and one of his feet emerge for a moment from the covers; he shivers and draws it back in, then goes still. "Bringing me back was unacceptable, 'n you didn't give a fuck. Got what you wanted, now I wanna sleep."

"I don't recall implying at any point that your 'wants' factored in to what is expected of you." If he'd been eating, she expects she'd be finding food squirreled about as well. One of the first things she hopes comes back is his general appreciation of cleanliness. "Find yourself a task or one will be relegated to you."

"Oooh." He mocks in a high-pitched voice. "Or what, you'll lock me away in the middle of nowhere like a fairytale gremlin?" He snorts.

Talia's face is fixed into the blank state she'd rarely been given occasion to use, but is now quickly becoming her default expression as she grabs hold of the many layers of blankets and rips them out of his loose hold. The glasses on the nightstand are topples over and the blankets fly to the other end of the room where they temporarily darken the place again before fluttering down to the cluttered ground before he's had the chance to so much utter his protests.

"Oh my gosh, what the…" Jason curls into a tight ball against his headboard almost instantly beginning to shiver in his boxers and undershirt. "Did you really just…"

"A stack of fire wood has just been delivered to our doorstep; the logs are too large to fit into the main fireplace. Make yourself useful." She toes aside a discarded sock, displeasure plain on her face. "If you haven't begun within the hour I will return with a jug of iced water. Do not test me on this Jason."

As she leaves, she hears him shuffling to retrieve his blankets, and then returning to the bed. When she returns, Jason has already gone back to sleep. The iced water has the added benefit of soothing a great part of the irritation that causes. He hasn't been that loud outside of his tantrums since before the pit.

O

O

O

"Crazy, evil, contrary…" Jason mutters under his breath as he raises the axe high above his still damp head and brings it down hard on another log. He turns to glare at the window of her office, because she couldn't have been more obvious about his little activity being set right where she could keep watch over him. Be a real shame if he ends up axe murdering himself, a real fucking shame.

He props another log on the stand and puts all his not as considerable weight into the down swing that splits it in half with a too loud crack. Woods are so quiet he'd bet they could heat him all the way in the town. Stupid fucking town, with the stupid fucking people that thought they knew bull.

And Talia, pulling that on him, since where the fuck? Between teachers there were periods where he'd spend days doing crap all, and no one did crap all about it. Talia never did crap all about it. 'The time for wallowing in bed has passed' in-fucking-deed. He shivered even under his thickly layered clothes and snagged another log.

Because not even Talia can be a damn constant, has to go and pull a one-eighty on him, like she thinks she's… He slams the wood on the stand and plants himself in front of it, breathing out a crystallized puff of air that takes a while to dissipate in the still air. If she'd been like this before, he'd never have started his training, wouldn't have gotten her to find him half those teachers.

The axe gets stuck in this log and Jason angrily raises both above his head again to slam them onto the stand with all the force he can muster. The impact makes a resounding thump and sends shock of pain running all up his arms and to his shoulders, leaving his hands feeling tingly. It only gets the axe wedged further in. He plants his foot on the wood and squares his shoulders as he grips the handle of the axe.

Without those teachers, he'd still be that pathetic little… Something flows out of his shoulders as Jason huffs in a breath, his eyes drifting over to the split logs piled carelessly around him, then over at the house, feels the damp in his hair and the fire that burns behind his eyes whenever he so much as thinks about Batman.

That pathetic little brat had had more of an idea of his perceived place in the world than this one.

Jason sighs, watches the cloud of steam this time as it drifts slowly away from him, then trails his eyes back down to the axe that's and the lump of wood it's stuck in. Squinting, he bends over to get a better look. There's something leaking out around the blade, something thick and dark. Jason rears back, the scores across the wooden neck of the training dummy superimposing themselves over the log, blood dripping down a lighter wooden chest that turns grey and broad and covered with a bat symbol.

His hands fly to his own neck; almost squeeze to stop the flow up blood again, but the collar of his jacket brushes against his fingers in place of slicked skin. He curls his hands into fists, in front of him, dig the nails of both into the left one instead of his throat until it bleeds, but the feeling of wrongness doesn't bleed out with it.

Burning eyes fix on the wood again, the sticky dark liquid leaking out; he runs his finger along it and brings it up to inspect, to make sure he's not going crazy again. It comes back sticky with tree sap. Jason swallows, tastes no iron running down his throat, sucks in a breath, and grips the axe again, this time with just his right hand.

He wiggles and tugs, until with one of his sudden jerks, he falls back, the axe coming with him and the wood skittering across the snow in the other direction. His eyes are still burning, and he goes to retrieve the wood, sets it aright and draws back the axe.

It takes three swings to split the wood, and Jason ripping it apart with his hand and foot to relinquish the sap's attempts at keeping the halves together anyway. Then he brings the axe down on the pieces again, and again, breaking the wood into quarters, then eighths, then smaller and smaller.

While it lasts, he feels some satisfaction at the syrupy strings of sap that cling to the axe every time he pulls it away from his target. Tiny little strands like wires trying vainly to bind the pieces together, but he's splintered the pieces too many times, flung too many slivers of wood away for them to put it back the way it was, no matter how sticky the sap is. His arms and his lungs are soon burning too with the exertion, but he keeps chopping, keeps breaking up the wood more and more until the chunks are so small the axe won't get them any smaller.

Jason keeps swinging anyway. Growing ever more frustrated at the little pieces that move aside rather than be broken further, his swings become harder and more violent, sweat trickling down his neck and turning icy as the wind picks up. His frustration builds until one of his downswings is powerful enough to send the axe head breaking apart from its wooden handle. The metal glints as it spins and flies away from Jason, catching just the bits of sunlight that past the clouds that he hasn't noticed gathering overhead.

His lips curl downwards at the broken handle, before Jason tosses it away from him, lets it join the many other broken pieces of wood scattered about as he heads back inside, his heavy footfalls making the prints forming in his wake much deeper than the ones that had marked his walk towards the stacks of wood earlier.

O

O

O

"Broke your axe." Jason mutters in her direction when he stomps back inside and petulantly shucks off his jacket. Talia arches and eyebrow at him when he makes as though to drop it in the entryway and he elects to fold it over his hands instead.

"It would be best to keep that on." Talia sips on her coffee and keeps typing up of her final replies. "We'll be returning to the town in under an hour."

"We?" Jason holds the jacket to his chest, and Talia will admit he looks a mess, his shoulders and arms shaking with exhaustion as he breathes in long, deep breaths, too long hair, dampened by sweat curling on his brow even when he brushes his elbow across his brow to clear the droplets away.

"Enough time for you to change your clothing and have breakfast." She can't leave him behind, and can't leave people without instruction another day. The more he leaves the house now the better.

"I don't want breakfast." Jason says, he moved to leave but Talia's frown stills him.

"If not now, you will have to eat when we reach the town and I cannot guarantee the food will be at the temperature you prefer." She keeps working as though she hasn't noticed the way his body tenses up, the widened eyes he pins on her, searching for the threat, debating whether or not to oppose her this time.

"Don't wanna go back there." The loosening of his posture is too artificial to reassure her. "I can eat something here later."

"Leaving you here on your own would be irresponsible of me after your last outburst."

"Yeah, what I want doesn't factor in anymore, right?" The green of his eyes flickers for a moment to something brighter, more poisonous as he spits the words out.

"Throwing another tantrum will only prove my point." She brushes her worry aside and saves the file, opening up another to continue her work. Jason doesn't linger, he's gone before she looks up again.

O

O

O

"Our operatives have thus far been incapable of obtaining a viable sample for testing Lady Talia." The operative on screen reports. "We've been unable to gain clear visual confirmation of their location, but according to an informant the targets are headed for Japan, we have personnel ready to intercept. They seem to have caught wind of our pursuit and are guarding the boy extremely closely."

"I see," Talia turns away from the article on another monitor 'BRUCIE WAYNE DOES IT AGAIN' plastered over most of the page. It goes on to compare the characteristics of the Bruce and the newest he'sbrought into his home. With a disgusted scoff, she swipes the page away. "And news of Shiva?"

"Still unaccounted for, but it's unlikely she's been convinced to further along an agenda of the Usurper. She's recently tripled the bounty on the head of the 'One who is all' and last sighting of Lady Shiva suggest she was furious, but such claims are of course…"

"Unconfirmed." Talia finishes, and fights to keep the irritation from showing on her face. Skilled as they are, none of her operatives have the skills to do what she requires of them, not without her coming out of the shadows to back them up front. "Assign more personnel to David Cain's surveillance and that tower of children, the Terminator may come out of concealment to engage his daughter."

She waves her hand dismissively and he bids her farewell before disconnecting from the server.

Talia waits a second, deliberating before bringing up the feed from the room where Jason had been left.

He's typing away furiously on the laptop she's given him, trying to break through the limitations set on it. It hasn't taken him long to realize the programming blocked out any site or search entry regarding either Gotham, Bruce Wayne, or any of his brood. Though not inept by any means, Talia's been guaranteed that his hacking abilities won't be enough to work around the system, not without setting of fail-safes that will render the thing useless.

It wouldn't be the first time he does something she's been told he's incapable off, so she keeps a close eye on his progress anyway. Watching him work towards 'some' goal, no matter how pointless, or perhaps 'because' it's pointless and he knows it, is a welcome sight. It's much more the sort of behavior she's learned to expect from him before.

Then he lets out an enraged shout snaps the monitor of the laptop from the keyboard and throws halves against a wall with enough force of shatter them, glass and the keys of the device launching from the point of impact in to scatter along the ground. This unfortunately is not unexpected.

Talia's rising from her seat before she's given the move thought, and has to restrain herself from going to him as he continues to take his frustration of on the already destroyed device. She mustn't coddle him, Talia thinks, as she returns to her seat, at best, it will make him too reliant on her, and that's not what she brought him back for either. As much as she tells herself this, it's still near painful to leave him there, screaming himself hoarse throughout his tantrum while the most she can do is watch to make sure she's available to stop him should he attempt to do serious harm to himself.

She rests her head against her hand and shakes her head, as she pinches the bridge of her nose until the shouts die down.

Jason pulls away from the mess he's made, something like fear shining briefly in his eyes while he presses a fist to his teeth. An arm shoots out to catch him against the wall before can topple over, then abruptly pushes away and stomps into the hallway.

Talia quickly shuts down the feed and brings up another of Luthor's proposals just as Jason plants himself in front of her desk. She schools her face carefully to disinterest, and doesn't let her gaze linger too long on the blood dripping from the teeth marks on his left fist too long before he slides it into his pocket.

"The laptops broken, I need another one." He says, not meeting her eyes.

"What happened to the one I gave you?" Talia scrolls through lists of contact information she'd memorized hours ago.

"It was 'broken'." He clenches his fist when he emphasizes the word, knuckles popping under the strain.

"I'm afraid it was all I could spare, I have access to very little funds while we are in hiding, you should know that." She reaches for the cooling mug of tea at her elbow.

Jason scoffs, makes an aborted motion to roll his eyes. "Then what the fuck am I supposed to do here?"

"Find a repairman, surely there's one in this town who can repair whatever damage was done to your laptop since I last used it." She sips on her drink as he flinches, his narrowed eyes drifting guiltily to the hallway.

"Can't I just go home?" The question in half a sigh, his posture slumping wearily to the side.

Talia's hands still over the keyboard. "Home?" She looks at him straight on for the first time since she walked into her work place. He blinks back at her confusion slowly creeping its way onto his features. Talia clears her throat and shakes the odd feeling off. "I have three hours of work to complete here. You can find some way of entertaining yourself for at least that long I'm sure."

"With 'what'?" He demands, throwing up his right hand and glaring at her, his shoulders squared, all traces of his weariness gone in an instant.

"Whatever you'd like Jason, you're not a child in need of toys to occupy your attention, just refrain from drawing undue attention for now."

"You're…" he growls low in his throat and takes a quick step back from her, a hands reaching up to his head, but stopping before it gets there. "The fuck I gotta be here for then!?" His heavy, stomping footfalls are pounding down the hall without him waiting for any reply, carrying his rage with his like virtual storm.

Talia sighs, and brings up the building surveillance again, even as she types in the codes to contact another of her agents. There are only eleven days left.

O

O

O

Jason considers picking a fight with someone at first, he doesn't care who, just wants to feel his fist crashing into something that's not wood or bring, to hear something crack and feel blood that isn't 'his' coating his hand. The hazy, green tinted flashes rip through his mind, and he's reminded that whatever he'd done the last time he'd looked for a fight, he'd gone too far, even without knowing what had happened he knew that.

So he crashes his fist into the grungy walls outside, hard enough to tear open the cuts that are already there and leave a red smear along the weatherworn exterior. He keeps at it until the shaking stops and his fist is broken, the pain having long passed to some point at the very back of his mind pushed everything else with it.

He could almost forget why he'd been so angry to begin with. That he's so screwed up 'Talia' thinks he needs babysitting. Needs kiddy locks on everything he touches like he's a five-year-old then have her turning around and berating him for being childish. He hates it, hates it almost as much as the green in his eyes and hot, itchy, 'wrong' feeling in his left hand. For a while, he almost considers doing something that get everyone's eyes on them just because she wouldn't like it, to set off a bomb in the middle of the town, or paint the mayor purple and hang him over some bridge while singing guns 'n roses at the top of his lungs. Then he catches himself and realizes how fucking stupid doing something like that would be how 'childish', and he slumps down to sit in the snow.

He grabs tow hands full of the slushy, half melted stuff and presses it to his face, breathing in the cold as it drip from his heated fingers. It's not worth it, being alive like this, 'he's' not worth it. Whatever Talia thinks she's going to gain out of bringing him back, whatever she thinks he can do, he can't and he knows it, she 'has' to know it too. Then why is he still here?

O

O

O

Night falls and Jason still hasn't had any great epiphany as to Talia's odd behavior.

The house is so quiet, he can hear the clacking of her computer keys from the kitchen where he's slicing up vegetable to toss in the curry he's making. Then again, that might be more a sign of her frustration than the actual noise level of the house, because there's also a branch bashing annoyingly against the walls in the wind. There's going to be another blizzard soon, Jason wonders how anyone lives in a town with such crappy weather. Gotham was just rain and visitors couldn't wait to get out.

Talia gave him tea almost as soon as they got back from the town, it was darker, with a very different color from what she usually gave him, but it still tasted like peppermint and Jason's head is clearer than it's been in days. Clear enough for him to worry about what she's putting in it. Nothing that will kill him, unfortunately that much is kind of obvious, but he doesn't like to think he's letting her drug him, doesn't want to wind up living with an addiction to some weird league drug, that'll give the bats a laugh he's sure, or maybe it's just something they'll expect from the crime alley kid.

Then again, what he 'wants' doesn't matter anymore.

Maybe Batman finding him won't be so bad. Dying was quick last time; it'll be quick this time too, won't it? And he's sure Batman will find some way of making sure Jason can't be brought back again. But Talia… His knife slips and makes a deep slice through the wooden cutting board as well as the carrot he's in the middle of slicing. He said he loved her at one point right, he wouldn't hurt her.

'He said he loved you too…'

Jason tastes blood on his tongue, imagines the same on her, seeping into the floorboards, the plush carpet in front of the fireplace and he can't breathe, a high-pitched keening sound being all that makes its way past his throat. She can't beat the Batman alone; she doesn't have any bodyguards to slow him down for her. She doesn't have any bodyguards because she has to hide from her sister, because of Jason…

The lights flicker and something shifts in the sudden darkness, before Jason can blink, the kitchen knife is flying from his fingers at the shape. There's a grunt and he slips into a fighting stance adrenaline thrumming in his veins.

"You're aims degraded." Talia's frowning at the knife, sunk into the wooden doorway barely an inch from her head.

"Oh my fuck." Jason backs against the counter, she blinks and see's her with the knife slicing through her neck, blood splattering all along the kitchen floor. It's not real, he knows it's not, but somewhere, some part of his mind knows it could have been. There are footsteps nearing him and Jason doesn't want to open his eyes and see that for himself.

"You're burning those onions Jason." He hears the knife clatter against the granite countertop.

What he wants doesn't matter...

He forces his eyes open, turns his back from where he can hear her sitting at the kitchen table. He moves the onions in the pan and turns down the heat, then tosses in a few more spices. Outside, the snow has started falling again, so he tosses in a few more to ward off the cold, wishes that there was a way to have the iced things he eats to the same.

What the fuck is he going to do? How can he do anything when he's too scared to eat his own fucking cooking?

O

O

O

Jason stands in front of his bathroom mirror, a razor in his shaking hand; he wipes the steam that's condensed on the glass. When the blade touches his neck, he flinches, back, almost cuts himself like he had the last time, the last time when he'd ended up a sobbing mess on the floor.

He growls, fist clenching, tight enough to hurt, to crack the tough plastic razor. Jason switches it to his left hand instead, the one that's wrong, then he brings the razor up again, his whole body freezes. Everything but his left hand and Jason doesn't know how he knew it would be different anymore than he knows 'why' but it works so he stops thinking about it. It takes long, too long, longer than it had even the very first time he'd done this, when he'd walked away from the mirror feeling way too proud of himself for a kid with a bloody face.

Then it's done, Jason almost throws the blade away from him, so eager he is to get rid of it, but he makes himself set it calmly, shakily on the basin instead.

It takes more force of will than he likes to make himself look at the result in the mirror afterwards. His eyes are greener than they ever were before, not a trace of blue, a sliver having become golden at the center. Hair's the same though, so he doesn't look any more like an old man at least if you discount the dark bags under his eyes and how much leaner his face had gotten.

Jason turns away with a sigh. It's not him, it doesn't feel like him, the him he was before but at least that's something he feels he has some experience with, something he's used to. The light stays on, casting it's light over his bedroom when he slides open the door.

Despite his misgivings, he drinks the iced tea at his bedside before he crawls under the covers. He can hear Talia still busy at work somewhere in the house, for the first time ever he wonders what it is that she'd doing. All he knows is that some of it is for Luthor and anything that prick wants can't be good for anyone, and he doesn't understand for a while why she's doing it at all. Then he's reminded again that she's working with very little right now, and Luthor, despite being penniless not long ago, - go Talia - now has very much.

Jason tucks his head under his pillow his knuckles clenched between his teeth until the tea does it's work and he's dragged down into sleep.

O

O

O

He comes awake with a start at the sudden chilled breeze against his legs, spends a seconds searching for a threat in the now brightly lit room before he realizes the source of the light is his window, his 'open' window.

"The drive way's been snowed in." Talia's standing at his bedside, a shovel in one hand and a jug of iced water in the other, unfazed by the glare Jason gives her through his too long bangs. His blankets are on the ground again.

Grumbling through the long list of Arabic curses he knows, Jason, grabs the shovel. Talia leaves the room with much more grace than his march to his closet for a dozen layers of fucking clothes.

Before he returns from shoveling the snow, frozen to his bones, he buries the damned shovel in the woods. There are easier ways of getting clearing a driveway, and he's not 'doing' that again.

Predictably, she has the fucking resources for another one.


	8. Fire

Talia doesn't expect it. She's just finishing a video conference with a tedious old man who she's glad to be done with when an alert for her less public business sounds. A glance at her monitors confirms that Jason is out of earshot – either attempting a repair on the laptop he'd destroyed or furthering its destruction – and she accepts the communication.

'My Lady Al Ghul,' the man bows, averting his gaze. She waves her hand in permission for him to speak and he steps aside, revealing another, one who hasn't bothered to uncover his face from her view. She's wearing the red robes of the League of Shadows.

Talia doesn't let her surprise show, she narrows her eyes and tilts her head slightly to the side, making note of the state of the woman on the screen. There's no sign her sisters servant has been in anyway ill-treated, she's standing tall and proud, haughty despite being in the house of enemies. It's immediately apparent this conversation will not be one she enjoys.

The daughter of The Demon doesn't speak for nearly a minute, waiting to see how the other woman will react, if she will break protocol and try to speak first. A part of Talia hopes she does, so there can be a reason for getting rid of the woman without having to hear 'what' it is her sister dares demand of her.

"Speak." Talia says at last, draping her wrists over the arm rests of her seat.

The woman finally lowers the fabric over her face, revealing her features and a smile that's nowhere near docile enough to please Talia.

'I bring greetings from your revered sister My Lady.' The woman inclines her head. 'Most grieved is she after your departure from her presence, and now this rebellion, drawing her loyal followers from the side of the Demon's Head.'

'Nyssa Raatko was a disowned bas…'

"Silence." Talia says sharply, a displeased frown locking on her man for his speaking out of turn. "You forget yourself."

He bows his head low, hands folded obediently before him. 'Apologies, My Lady.'

Talia looks from him to the woman, who's brow is now lined with anger she won't dare express any further, Talia raises an arm to rest her head on the palm. "Continue."

'The Demon's Head has spent some time considering the repercussions for your actions.' She continues with her scripted message, only marginally less smug than she'd been before. 'But after much consideration, she has come to the generous conclusion that your departure was but an emotional over reaction to events outside of your control, and her counter actions, while, justified, hasty. She wishes to mend bonds with her beloved younger sister.'

"And how is it she plans on attempting to do so?" Talia says, her voice droll, now studying the nails on the hand she isn't leaning on. "By resurrecting the dozens of my operatives she's had murdered?"

'Surely you can understand that traitors will not be tolerated.' She punctuates her sentence with a malevolent glance at Talia's man. "The Demon's head requires that you turn all deserters over to their rightful fates.'

Talia a chuckles, leaning back in her chair and shaking her head. As if Talia would be naïve enough to return to Nyssa without any of her loyal forces. Sacrificing enough to please her would leave Talia virtually crippled, just as she'd been when she'd first joined with the new self proclaimed Demon's Head.

The messenger flinched back at Talia's laughter, her eyes darting up to the source and then at her surroundings, eyes wide.

"And what could Nyssa have to offer me that could possibly sway me to agreeing with such a thing?" This conversation had already gone on too long. There are more important things she ought to be focusing on, she'll have the messenger disposed of – even having seen as much as she has of Talia has made her a security risk – and move on to managing the operatives she has investigating the situation in Gotham. Nyssa will never accept anything less than absolute control of those around her and Talia is unwilling to cede herself to that control again.

She's about to give the order when she notices the messenger's lips curl in the barest hint of a smile. 'Her sisterly love.' She says, and Talia holds off on scoffing. 'You it's been made plain that you do not understand the depths of the Demon Head's love for her sister. How you've grieved her by your actions. The boy, she might have raised herself if she had know to be your desire, but knowing the effects of the pit, she hadn't guessed you would wish such a fate on your pet.'

"That's enough." Talia says, ignoring the coals burning through her chest, turning any traces of amusement to ash.

'Your return now guarantees a cure for the madness that plagues him, as she prevented yours from consuming you.' The woman says, hurriedly. 'The league will provide whatever he required for his recovery. Was he not the reason for your desertion?'

Talia doesn't glance back at the feeds monitoring Jason, doesn't need to, she knows the ragged look of him, in comparison to how he should have been. The messenger takes note of her pause and takes it as permission to continue.

'The Demons Head knows much of the pits, more than even her father had learned in his many lifetimes. Submit as is your place and he will be returned to the whatever mental state you could ask of her.' 

Their father had spent years trying to find a way to reverse death through use of the pits; Nyssa had accomplished such on her own. There was no small chance she'd learned more.

"And if I refuse submission?" Talia says, fixing her gaze now solely in the woman, as though Nyssa will feel the heat of her glare though the messenger.

'Then you alone will be responsible for whatever fate the Demon's Head sees fit to bestow upon him. The league possesses the resources to locate you, returning willingly is the least painful option for all involved.'

Talia shares a look with her agent, shakes her head firmly. "Dispose of her and make sure Nyssa recovers the remains." She says and ends the transmission before waiting for a response.

O

O

O

It's not something she can name, the eerie, emotion tugging harshly beneath her ribs. Talia rises from her bed and listens in the darkness, the quiet of the isolated house for the sound for what has woken her. Even the wind has quieted, there's nothing banging on the shingles.

Something has gone wrong, what she doesn't know, as she moves through the house, freezing as though the cold outside has been forced within. Her first thought is to search for a breach. The search takes her but a few minutes, and she finds nothing. No windows or doors cracked open, all security systems in place and active, but she cannot shake the feeling.

There is still no sound, making her footfalls seem louder than they have since she'd been a young child, still untrained as she makes her way to Jason's room.

Like moving into a freezer, the cold deepens as she approaches, and her unease grows. In the pitch darkness, something flashes for but a second, and gives Talia pause at his doorway before steeling herself and moving on. She nears her head, eyes searching out the flashing object. There's a sticky substance at her feet, squelching between her bare toes. Nausea stabs at her stomach, pulls at her throat and her head swims.

She raises a hand to reach for the boy, but his stopped short when his eyes open, irises glowing a poisoned green that illuminates the room. Illuminates the blade buried to the hilt in his chest, blood flowing from the wound, covering the sheets and flowing to the ground, staining her feet a deep crimson, still trickling from his mouth.

Voices whisper from behind her as horror paralyses her in place. Malicious, too loud for her to escape.

"You are responsible for whatever fate I see fit to bestow upon him."

O

O

O

If she were someone else Talia might have thrown herself from her bed the moment she woke, her heart attempting to break from her chest, her face and body soaked with either sweat or tears she refuses to acknowledge. She swings her legs off the bed, wraps a robe over her nightclothes to ward off the chill causing her shivers.

She squashes down the urge to wretch despite the pains in her gut and the sour taste of bile in the back of her throat when she heads for Jason's room. The hallway is dark, but when she turns down it a sliver of light, escaping beneath his doorway lights a portion. She hadn't thought to turn the light on in her dream, seeing it now allows her to take in a deep, calming breath.

The light makes her think he might be awake, but she cracks open the door and finds this is not the case. The glass of tea she'd left him, mixed in with his sedative sits empty on his nightstand and the bundle of blankets on his bed rises and falls gently with his breaths, wooden shavings dusting the surface.

Talia feels tension flood from her body and she steps over the clothing in various other objects littering the ground to reach him. His face is visible, peaceful, but she leans in to inspect it closer anyway, to be sure he remains unharmed. The only new injuries she finds are at his fingertips, shallow cuts and some bruising. The cause is easy to find, along with the source of the shavings.

On the other side of his bed are pieces of the logs she'd had him size down and a pair of knives. She picks up a chunk of the wood and seats herself on the edge of his bed as she turns it over in her hands. The hewn shape of a batarang taking her longer than it should have to notice. Dark heat flares in her chest and she has to set the thing aside lest she crush it, gather up all the badly carved figures and burn the away.

The boy shifts besides her, his brow crinkling, fighting off the sedative, she realizes, his hands fisting at his sheets.

Instinctively she shushes him and places her hand on his brow, smoothes away the crease between his eyes with his thumb. He calms almost instantly and she sighs, bringing both hands to cover her face. It's hard to look at him now, without seeing the blade in his chest or slashing across his throat. No, coming from Nyssa, even that would be a mercy, and Nyssa will not be merciful if she ever gets her hands on the boy.

If his sedation is such that he doesn't wake now, how would he ever defend himself were someone other than her to find him, would he fight off an attacker at all, even if he were capable? The injuries he acquires over the course of every new day don't give her much hope on that front. He needs protection, from now until he's willing to do it himself, but she cannot trust that any of her loyalists will not see the care she puts into him as weakness, and above all else, she cannot afford to appear weak.

She brushes aside the shavings that have made tumbled to her lap, watches the meet the rest of the mess on the ground. If nothing else, she's at least found a chore to wake Jason to in the morning. He might appreciate it in comparison to the outdoor tasks she'd assigned him previously. But then, his grumblings at the menial labor are close as she can get him to behaving as he had before.

Talia rises, and with a soft smile, runs her hand through his hair the way she had when he'd been in her care the first time, even deep into his sleep he leans into the touch.

It's too late for her to find a solution, so Talia leaves him to claim what sleep she can find before morning.

O

O

O

Talia makes Jason clean his room that morning 'his room' like he's a fucking toddler who made a mess with his play-doh. His mouth gapes incredulously, but she doesn't amend her order. He wants to fight her on it, but he's tired and there's something about her posture when she walks away that makes him decide against it.

For a while he wonders what she'll do if he just refuses, she can't throw him with water if he's already out of bed, not unless she can catch him that is, but he thinks that running away from a woman with a jug of water would be even more pathetic than cleaning up a mess he 'had' made himself.

There's wood all over the floor, but he only vaguely remembers getting bored last night, so, so bored, too tired to make for the training room but also too antsy to try reading paging through any of Talia's old books, so he'd tried his hand at carving. The stuff wasn't exactly made for carving, and now that he's looking down at it, he can feel the splinters his attempts to do so have left in his aching hands. Pausing his cleaning, Jason looks down at the damage and winces. Stupid was what it was, he thinks, picking up a chunk of wood that looks almost like he'd what he'd been trying to make.

His throat goes dry as he looks at it, his brain filling out the bastardized shape for tat of the real thing as his ears fill the pounding of his heart, loud and fast, blood rushing from his veins and leaving him both chilled as the frigid winds knocking against the house and too hot to breath.

The carving cracks, embeds even more splinters under his fingers, and suddenly the pain is the only thing he can feel. Everything else is gone but for the feel of the wood embedding its way beneath his skin, he focuses on it, knowing that if he doesn't and he loses it, everything else will come flooding back and he won't be able to handle it.

Eventually though, the pain fades, too fast it's gone and the bat is back and, Jason lets out a cry and tries to break the thing in his hands further, tries to push the pieces under his skin so he won't have to look at the anymore. It doesn't work, no matter how many splinters he holds it won't lose its shape and there are many more that are whole, lying at his feet.

Only half-conscious of his actions, he scoops them up, leaving everything else where it lays.

He's not sure how much later it is that he's sitting on the plush carpeting of the living room, gasoline spilled on his bare feet and eyes locked on the blaze contained within the neat granite of the fireplace. He's transfixed the flames dancing on the mangled wings of as bits of it chip and fall to mingle with the coals. Did the one that hit him look like that, after? Had it been burned to ash in the fires of the explosion after it had done its job, or had Batman picked it up, put it in a case along with all his other trophies? He can imagine it sitting there, right next to the razor hats from that time at the gala when Bruce…

It's like he's being strangled, his body tries to curl in on itself and watch the fire at the same time and it can't. Why should it have been in a case, when every other trace that Jason had ever lived had been erased? Paved over. Not even the titans remembered him. No, it had been left in that building to burn away just like everything else, like Jason had rigged it to. The batarang and his guns and the ropes he'd tied the joker with and all the blood that had poured out of him and… Jason.

Jason should have burned away too, should have been in that fire, if he's planned better he would have been in that fire with the Joker and Batman to, all of them, gone.

Now the fires right there, the batarangs are ashes and Jason sitting here, if he just reaches forward he can touch it, bury his hand in the coals and let them melt him away. It's not a conscious decision, there's no fixed point where he goes from idle musings to stretching out his left hand. The wrongness of the limb itches like crazy, but the fires warm and washes a lot of that away, so slowly, slowly he moves it closer, watches the flames dance between his spread fingers like tiny knives.

Before long he's kneeling right in front of the fire, close enough that his face burns from the heat, his fingers brushing against the flames, he pushes them deeper, just an inch, then another and.

"Jason!"

Her hands are a vice around his wrist, wrenching him back from the flames, sent tumbling over the carpeting, smearing flecks of soot across the fabric. She's talking, but his head is spinning and he can't make out the words, can't make out much of anything past the dryness in his throat and the acrid scent of singed skin. A fog is settling over his mind and he lets it sink deeper within the crevices, numbing everything around him.

"No!" Fingers dig painfully into his jaw, forcing his head up, her face in his felid of vision. "Look at me, now!" He tries, blinks up at her, her face, furious, peeking through the fog, his ears focusing on her words, that's not English but he can't tell what it is, despite his desperation to sink down deeper.

"Let me go." He demands, trying desperately to dislodge his head, his arm, but her grip holds still and now his hand is burning, nausea filling his stomach and he can't tell why. All other thoughts gone, he struggles to get away from her, to reach for the fire again or the fog or anything, anything that isn't here, where he doesn't have to smell and feel and hear and see and he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to be here, he doesn't belong, he shouldn't be here, he's not supposed to be here, he's not supposed to be here, he's not…

O

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"I'm not supposed to be here, let me go, I have to go away I'm not supposed to…"

Despite Talia's attempts to keep him present, Jason's eyes look past her, dulling over even before he stops trying to escape from her, his whispered mantra speeding up, changing in pitch and tone, but never growing louder, his voice watery as the tears falling again from his eyes.

The melted nylon of his sleeve has dried against her palm and his burned skin both, the odor almost overpowering the chemical stench of the plastic based fabric. His other hand covers his eyes, now muffling both his sobs and the words that still don't stop. Talia sits on the couch behind him, sets the fingers of her free hand to his hair, not daring to release the other, she rests her head against his and he slumps over, dropping his brow to her lap. It doesn't take long for the tears to soak through her pants.

She keeps hold of him like that until the tears have run out and the shakes have stopped. He's gone quiet but for the occasional shudder running through him. When she shifts, Talia see's the wooden chips on the carpet near where he'd been sitting. Her hand curls around his neck and feels for his rapid pulse, steadily decreasing.

Such a little thing, she thinks, is all it takes for him to hurt. If Nyssa knew how easy it was, she wouldn't have bothered threatening Talia.

If only there were a little thing that would work as well at easing his pain.

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Jason comes back to himself slowly this time, feeling, or rather 'not' feeling his left arm. It's swaddled neatly in bandages and in a sling pressed close to his chest, the icy draft from a nearby window raising the hairs on his bare arms. The smell of incense heavy on the air.

"Kitchen's freezing." He says, not looking up at the woman seated across from him, he wraps his good arm around himself in a futile attempt at warding off the chill.

"The house needs airing."

He can tell she's looking at him, studying him, trying to figure out what the hell he'd thought he was doing. He keeps his eyes trained on the tabletop instead. He doesn't have an answer.

"What're you gonna do with me?" He asks instead, he should hate how his voice sounds, hollow and pathetic, but instead he just feels tired. Of everything. His hand's going to hurt like a bitch when whatever she gave him wears off and he knows it. He hopes it's just his hand that hurts. 

"You don't need more medical treatment than I can provide you with, for now at least, once I'd cleaned the soot I found it wasn't as serious as I'd feared." She's not sipping on tea, or tapping on a tablet, he doesn't hear anything like that.

"Not what I fucking meant." And she knows it. He lets out a sigh and lays his head on the table, he wants to go back to sleep, what time is it even? Not late enough for her to let him he'll bet. "'M not getting 'better' or whatever you thought was gonna happen. 'F you didn't threaten me I wouldn't even get outta bed, an I keep doing…" he wiggled his numb arm as much as he could. "This bullshit." He's afraid of seeing what his arm looks like under the bandages, even more afraid of the fact that his fingers are itching to rip the dressings aside and look.

"This state is temporary Jason." She says and there's a hand pressing lightly against his arm. "You've healed before, and you will do so again, ceding to death is not in your nature." She says it like it's a fact, like she believes it, and Jason holds off from asking who out of the two of them is more fucked in the head.

He snorts at that, wonders if that's what she'd thought of when Ra's men had dug up his coffin. "Then what, you get me another string of murder teachers?" He finally looks up at her and immediately regrets it. She's so tired, and he knows it's his fault; she wouldn't even be here if he weren't such a weak, scared, screw up.

"Do you wish for me to find you another teacher?" She asks, her head cocked ever so slightly aside.

"I…" he doesn't know, he'd worked so hard before, thrown everything he had into learning everything he could. He doesn't see a point in trying again, but what's the alternative? He really is tired, so fucking tired it's like someone's injected lead into his bones, of being the way he is. She's not going to let him die, she's not going to dump him off somewhere, not for a long while. Then there's the fact that when he's not terrified out of his mind he's been getting fucking 'bored'. "To learn what?"

"You'll have to decide that for yourself." She stands now, the soft expression gone from her face and replaced by that cool indifference he's been getting used to seeing. "Find a worth pursuing, prove you can be left unsupervised, and I will see to it you have the best guidance possible."

His eyes follow her and he picks at his bandages. A path? He'd tried paths worth pursuing, twice, and they'd both lead to the same destination. He would have thought it was pretty obvious by now that he didn't do the whole deciding thing well. "Anything?"

"Within reason, it would be a shame to put your skills to waste. Now find a coat and come along, you'll have to finish cleaning your quarters when we've returned." She pats him once on the shoulder before moving for the doorway.

"Can't I just stay at home today?" His voice sounds weak and whiny, even to his own ear, but she stops walking and turns to look back at him, a split second of indecision on her face. It doesn't last.

"Come along Jason." She repeats.

When they get back home later that night, it's to find she's had a locked grill welded over the fireplace. His burns flare at the sight of it and Jason's too relieved to feel insulted by what amounts to more baby proofing of his surroundings.

He just goes to sleep, and hopes he doesn't dream of fire.


	9. Interlude  (Ja...)

In the end, it's the seconds that do him in. The small snatches of time when he's incapable of pushing his mind towards literally anything else. No matter what he was never going have every second of everyday filled, and those that he misses, they build up.

In the beginning, he starts with trying to find them. Dick won't tell him what they'd done with the arm, after they'd torn it from Bruce, what they'd done with Ja… So Bruce tries to find the rest of him.

It's all he does, from the moment he opens his eyes and stumbles down to the cave. Eventually he stops waking in his bed. Eventually they try to lock him out of the cave. It doesn't matter; he has overrides built into his overrides. Eventually he stops leaving the cave altogether. Eventually they stop trying to make him.

One day Alfred puts some papers in front of him, Bruce doesn't give the neat rows of printed words so much as glance, just locates the dotted lines and signs.

Tim and Cassandra spent a lot of time in the manor, Bruce can hear them at first, for the short amount of time they seem to do nothing but try catching his attention.

"Bruce, everyone's asking about you, about… Batman, Dick's trying but he can't do it forever."

If Dick had any sense he would have burnt every single one of those suits and Bruce tells them so.

"You and me." Cassandra turns his chair from the computer, her hands folded in front of her. "Spar?" Her eyes are half lidded, brows drawn together in an imploring frown.

Bruce imagines her bleeding out on a filthy floor, his hands covered in her blood.

He tries. Bruce 'tries' but whenever his mind drifts, it drifts to… Bruce tries to hold onto them, tightly as he can, to push the rest of it away. They're grieving their own losses, their friends, their families; it's his fault for sending them to Bludhaven. He tries, but the seconds keep coming. They push him so far down that swimming along with them is just easier. It's better than letting the pressure crush them too, like he'd crushed, J…

Dick says they need him. He knows they don't they deserve better.

Bruce looses seven hours staring at the case, the Robin uniform kept in pristine condition. Its owner could walk in and put it on and it would… He hears the sounds, the sounds the boy wound had made in his last moments. Choking, and bloody gurgling and aborted attempts at wheezy terrible breaths that stutter past his ruined throat. It's too loud, too crystalline and clear to be something that Bruce remembers, but still they seem unimaginable. Blood on his hands, struggling to put pressure on the wound but it's too slippery and it was too late before he ever noticed. Why didn't he notice?

The terrible squelching when Wilson had severed the hand and Dick wouldn't… he wouldn't tell Bruce what they'd done with the hand, that won't tell him what they did with the rest…

Cass tells him he's screaming, she asks him to stop. Bruce knows he's barely made a sound. That's not what she means and they both know it. It's not her job to make him stop, she's crying, he sends her to Barbara.

Oracle infects the computer with a virus. They force him to go to the press conference. Bruce goes along with it, reads the script and acts the act.

Tim leaves not long after, to grieve together with his friends, for Superboy and for Jack Drake and for Stephanie. He shatters the case before he goes. No one has the energy to put it back together.

Bruce tries to go back to work, but all the leads have dried up. There's nothing more, absolutely nothing and no matter how hard Bruce looks, he can't find anything. It hits him that he'll never find it; never know what they did to the rest of Ja…

For the first time since the explosion, in a stagnant quiet punctuated only by the soft chitterling of bats, Bruce screams. There's nothing, nothing to distract from it, no hope of ever finding it, he never apologizes, he can't, there's nothing left.

The seconds have caught up to him and it's too much. Ja… someone's screaming with him.

There's no knowing how long it takes, Bruce doesn't care for time anymore. Dick walks him to a headstone on the manor grounds. Flowers, bright and colorful and shimmering in the early morning dew, surround it. This is what they'd done with the arm.

"There was a funeral, but we couldn't get you away from the computer." Dick doesn't look at Bruce when he speaks, keeps his eyes on a heavily thorned rosebush instead.

Bruce kneels before the headstone, his head pressed against the damp grass. There are more words, but the words don't reach him.

Nothing reaches him but the stone and the grass and the dirt clenched in his fist. There's nothing for him to do. He prays. For the first time in years, Bruce prays and he prays. That it was him instead, that he'd let the bullet hit him. That he's not sitting on the packed earth above an arm rotting six feet below the ground. That the painful seizing ripping apart his rib cage would grow and break him in two.

There's a ghost waiting for Bruce in the cave now and he can't bring himself to go back down there. It knows, just like Bruce knows and Dick knows, the blood that Bruce tracks through everything, smears along everything he touches. It's quiet, everything's so quiet and the blood is so loud.

Seconds pile on to minutes, pile on to hours, pile on to days, pile on to…

In hiding from the ghost, Bruce comes across a batarang wedged behind a bookshelf. He can see it, flying away from him, sailing for its target, the target it never should have hit. Blood on his hands, warm and sticky. Iron fills his mouth. He hears screaming and shouting and begging, but Bruce doesn't make so much as a sound.

When Bruce wakes up, it's to Dick's heavy, muffled sobbing; the boy's pressing his face into Bruce's chest forcing any air from his lungs. A heart monitor beeps at Bruce, screams at him that he's alive when he shouldn't be. In the corner of the hospital room a ghost grins at him, blood falling from the mouth stretching across its youthful face and the wide, gaping hole at its neck, flowing down to pool on the sterile ground.

-Still alive, old man…-

It's tired of waiting for him in the cave and decided to come and find him itself.

Bruce's hand goes to the bandaging that surrounds his neck; he doesn't turn from the corner.

Dick screams and begs; he makes Bruce promise so Bruce does, he decides they'll never talk of this again. They go back to the manor.

The master bedroom's too big. Too many shadows and corners for the ghost to hide it, always there no matter where he turns his head. Bruce can't sleep there. So he finds himself in the library, the sheltered nook in the back that's bracketed by shelves of Ja… It was his favorite spot. He swears if he turns his head a certain way he can see a young man reading there. It's worse than the ghost, but Bruce doesn't let himself leave, so much as thinking about doing so brings the ghost back, and it's chewing, snarling, clawing at the tendons of his ankles, so he can't drag himself out no matter how much he wants to.

Bruce sits and he remembers, he doesn't let himself scream.

It's here that he finds the bottle, unopened and hidden between 'Crime and Punishment' and 'The Count of Monte Cristo.' The second dull, but don't leave him. He still can't sleep. He can't stay in the library forever. The young man's trying to read after all. Bruce takes the bottle with him when he leaves.

Days pass, things blur. He avoids Dick, avoids Alfred, until he can pretend to himself they're not even in the manor sometimes. Soon it's just Bruce and the ghost whispering to him, always whispering. Whispering of a boy running through the halls. Of a young man studying over dinner, he has a test in the morning. Of the corpse at his feet, blood dripping from Bruce's hands.

-Murderer…- It whispers as the boy devours a cake in the kitchen. -Hypocrite- The young man's dressed up for a gala; he'd rather go out with his friends.

Someone's hands on his shoulders, leading Bruce from the ballroom. He thinks its Dick, but someone else's features are blurring his face out and Bruce is too afraid to look too closely.

When the bottle's empty, Bruce finds another. This one's scotch, it's strong and it's bitter and it 'burns' all the way down.

Eventually he gets used to the whispers, thinks that maybe the ghost is doing him a kindness, this is, after the only way Bruce will ever see Ja… It's a kindness that's, little hooks in his chest, slowly picking out the flesh, little by little until there's nothing left, but Bruce decides he's grateful for it.

One day he follows the boy into a room. Yellow bed sheets made up to military standards a stark contrast to the mess of notebooks on the desk. Bruce leaves the bottle at the door; he knows he'll need it again, but its sacrilege, the very idea of bringing it in here. He feels bad when he trips and falls on the bed, messing up the sheets, but he'll fix them before their owner returns.

Here, Bruce can sleep, his mind sluggish from the alcohol and the smell of the detergent, the lie that if he stays long enough, Ja…

He wakes up screaming two hours later, it's still the most rested he's been in months.

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Gotham now is a very different place than it had been the last she'd deigned to enter its city limits. While it was always dirty, disgusting, and dark in places that most cities knew well enough to keep lit. In some ways, very similar to Detroit.

Low on the ground, she stays, though the skyline is one of Gotham's best features, through the alleys where the stench of something dead and rotting fills her nostrils, she can see just how similar to Detroit it can be. At least, when she'd been there.

The batsignal, bright and garish, lights up the layers of smog suspended above, bright and promising help it will never provide. A rat scurries past, hugging the wall so as not to come too close, a finger bone still covered in scraps of flesh clenched within its jaws.

Others would chalk the disarray up to the presence of warring League of Shadows members slaughtering each other, stirring up the place's already insatiable thirst for blood, but she knows better. Whatever has splintered the League, set the Demon's daughters against each other and incited them to war, it began in this city. If she wants to get her hands on the information she needs, the bartering power she 'will' need, she'll find it here. That and she has… other business to take care of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short. I was kind of starting to depress myself right along with Bruce.


	10. Bomb

"Why can't I just be a crimelord again?" Jason's half-asleep, folded over the table in the kitchen, picking at the soft savory mousse he's supposed to finish. The bandages wrapped around his left arm still itch but he can't get to them because the arm's under his jacket. The food distracts from that at least.

After his last incident, Talia's taken to giving him the morning tea as soon as he's awake enough to drink it without choking. It makes him, not drowsy exactly, but unfocused, dragging his way through some semblance of a morning routine is a fucking nightmare but he doesn't get 'chores' anymore, so there's that.

"It was beneath you. If you absolutely must deal with criminals it will be those with 'some' decorum." Having already finished her own breakfast, she sipping on cooling tea as she reads something on a tablet, oblivious to the incredulous look he sends her way.

"Decorum." He scoffs, and glares at his spoon, takes another small bite, the mousse is so soft and airy he can barely feel it when he swallows. It's not bad, but he's not willing to risk eating it faster. Like Jason's takeover of Gotham had been the picture of elegance and propriety. Like his zombified ass is in possession of decorum now.

She raises an eyebrow at him over her tablet and Jason scoops up the last few scraps of his breakfast.

When Talia had offered to find him another teacher, she'd said anything 'within reason'. Turned out within reason means he has to give her a good reason for why he wants to learn something and so far the only reason good enough is something he can make some kind of career out of, like she's a fucking guidance counselor.

He could have made a big deal about how she'd rejected every idea he'd put forward, but truth was he'd only had two. One was 'beneath him' and the other was a waste of his talents, it seemed to escape her that both of those meant the same thing. Didn't help that his mind hit a blank almost every time he tried to push it out of the quiet routine of house to office to house (whatever she put in his tea didn't exactly help with that) and the few times his mind got past the blank it was right into another screaming breakdown (that, the tea did help with.)

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Thinking far enough into the future to come up with a path of study is just beyond him, but he tries anyway because the alternative is lying around her office trying to fix the laptop he'd destroyed while she manages her little empire.

Someone, somewhere, was supposed to kill someone else, and they didn't get the job done. Assassins, they have literally the simplest job in the world and they were still pathetic at it. That's what you get when you have the skills to be useful you ended up killing people for money. It's too bad Talia isn't following the 'fail a mission and die' thing her sister does. Then again, at the rate her people screw up, if she does do that she'll run out pretty damned fast and Jason doesn't know what they recruitment rates are like for secret organizations when they're at war. High turnover rates and all. She ends the curl and her lips curl into a snarl.

"What if I became an assassin?" It's close enough to the other thing's he'd suggested and it wouldn't exactly take him a lot of brainpower to measure up to the other idiots she has working for her.

"Don't be ridiculous Jason, you despise assassins." She doesn't hesitate a second before answering, she leans back her fingers pressing into her eyes for a few seconds before she gathers her files and goes back to work.

A live wire sticking out of the laptop casing sends a jolt of electricity through his arms and Jason curses, reflexively tossing it away from him. It drops to the floor, undoing the little repairs he'd been able to complete one handed. Jason grumbles at the mess of electricity on the ground and wishes he had something to punch. The training room back at the house would come in real handy for that, but no, he's stuck at the fucking office.

"What about a mercenary?" He tries the next time she ends a video call. It's the same thing, basically, but he can take security jobs and beat the shit-stains out of assassins instead of being them.

"Even if you were capable of it, taking orders doesn't suit you." Talia lets out a breath that comes close to being a sigh and gathers up a stack of papers on her desk. "In any case." She knocks the papers against her desk, straightening them out before she stashes them in a drawer. "It would be beneath you. You're combat ability is incredibly high Jason, there aren't many teachers I could find who would improve them, think of something else."

Jason watches her pull out a second keyboard and being typing while he tries to find where the insult in her last statement was, he can't.

He gives up on the laptop, he's not going to fix it and he doesn't even know why he wanted to in the first place. She's had it wired to filter out anything more useful than cat videos. Talia doesn't complain when he snags some paper and a pen off her desk and he spends some time scribbling out random crap that eventually turns to plans that eventually turn to all the fuck up he made to his Gotham plan.

If he hadn't wanted so badly to have Batman in front of him when he'd made his choice there were dozens of ways he could have gotten what he'd needed. Shouldn't have slapped that Robin around and left him, shoulda kept him in hand, had a hostage that Batman cared about for when things went south. Shouldn't have taken off his helmet, he was sure by then that Batman knew who he was, all it did was give him a couple seconds of drama and a lack of protection that would have saved his life. Shouldn't have gone in alone, it would have taken a few months at most to rustle up some backup, someone to watch his back and tire Bruce out some more.

He'd had the money, he could have done it, would have made things so much simpler and Jason could have been… Well he doesn't know where he'd be if things hadn't gotten so badly derailed, but he sure as hell knows he wouldn't be stabbing his leg with a broken pen through the pages his writing tore up. Fuck, he hopes that's not bleeding. Jason swears again and pushes the papers off his lap, frowns at the dark ink that's the jagged, broken pen has spilled all over his jeans.

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They leave the building for lunch, which kills any hope in Jason that this'll be a short day. He knows he doesn't have much ground to argue for being left at home - he could have severed his leg with a pen half an hour ago for god's sake – , but does she even need to do that much in the town? There's an office at the house and she can't need all that encryption for every conversation she has. Not even if she's planning to stab a president to death – which, considering her boss isn't all that farfetched.

A teacher'd probably mean he wouldn't have to go to the town that much, but that just has to be hard doesn't it? No matter how much he wracks his brain he can't come up with something she'd 'approve' of. He's stuck stirring a mostly frozen soda around in his glass, watching the ice dissolve away.

They're at some high-end sushi bar, so high end he's surprised his cheap soda hasn't spoiled their selection of fancy ass wines. It's got a green and white color scheme that makes the place look incredibly clean and fresh, it 'is' incredibly clean and everyone in it looks just as clean. Suits and a few dresses. In his hoody and his ink stained jeans, Jason probably looks like he's been fished off the side of the road, which he technically was, 'twice', but still.

This is the kind of place that Talia finds acceptable, this, not the streets and the dirt Jason gravitated to.

A waiter in a uniform so white it hurts Jason's eyes sets their food down in front of them, waits a second for any new requests, and leaves without a word.

"I think you've improved enough to attempt something solid." Talia says after Jason's spent too long staring at his sushi rolls.

They're simple, just rice and tofu and some sauce in a little ceramic bowl off to the side. Pretty though, Jason remembers wondering what sushi tasted like as a kid, not as good as it looked was his opinion when he'd actually had the chance to eat it. Just three little pieces that he should have been able to finish in one bite each.

He uses his chopsticks to break them apart, until they're not quite as pretty anymore, until he can pick up pieces small enough that he won't have to chew them long enough to get warm before he can swallow. When he turns his head, he can see into the kitchen and watch the chefs crafting more, carefully assembling the ingredients together into more pretty shapes. Flowers and stars and little fish, kinda like making pancake shapes pancakes, but it looks like it could be fun.

"I could be a chef." Jason says without really thinking about it until the words leave his mouth and his head snaps to Talia as soon he realizes it.

It's nothing like his other suggestions and the only one she doesn't disregard outright. She pauses in dipping something in her sauce, then her eyes shift to the broken up pieces of food in front of him that he's not sure he'll be able to finish.

"Best to keep that as a hobby." She lifts the glass of deep red wine from her side takes a sip. "For now."

Jason doesn't manage to finish the sushi rolls, he takes a bite that's just a little too big and while he doesn't break down in a panicked mess he can't make himself eat anymore of it and ends up with another chilled soup. Can't be a chef when he can't even eat, huh?

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When they get back to the office Talia gives him the tea to drink and he relaxes enough to try working on the laptop again. Then he falls asleep working on the laptop and shocks himself on an electric discharge from a capacitor. When they're supposed to go home, he brings the fucking thing with him. He thinks she knows it's too broken for it to ever connect to any signal again. It doesn't matter; he has other plans for it now, better plans.

As soon as they get to the car, Jason reaches for the radio and finds the loudest channel he can. There's a limiter on how loud the speakers will let the music get – no louder than most elevator music really – but it still 'feels' loud after the intense quiet of the past few days.

"What if I wanted to be a rock star?" He asks with a grin as, expecting her to scoff or roll her eyes at him.

Instead, Talia hums softly under her breath, her eyes narrow and he can practically hear the gears turning in her head. "It would be a good way for you to spread your ideals, build a name for yourself before you've decided on a path." She nods once, as they turn round a corner. "I've heard there are even cults formed around such performers."

"Talia?" Jason blinks at her, and tugs at the bandages on his arm, they're chaffing at his skin again. He can't tell if she's kidding or if she actually believes that. Far as he knows, Talia 'doesn't' kid, but she can't possibly be serious. "You kidding now, right?"

"Of course not. Have you any preferences for a teacher or should I compile a dossier?" She doesn't look at him when she says it, doesn't twitch or smile even a little, but there's something in her voice that just might be amusement. Jason can't tell. He can't and it's kind of freaking him out.

"I'm not talking to you for the rest of the day." Jason pulls up his hood and crosses his arms, determined to keep looking out the window until the drive is open. He thinks he sees her reflection smile, but the glass is warped at the edges and he can't be sure. He thinks he's rather not find out.

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O

O

This project is risky, ridiculously so. Not dozens, but potentially hundreds of ways that is could turn catastrophic. The serum, untested outside of laboratory conditions, is something Talia would have hesitated using on grown soldiers, let alone those of the ages Luthor has specified. She knows from experience, from watching such projects fail over and over in her father's organization, that trying to sculpt warriors from children rarely works, and when it does, the survivors are fit for little else. They don't live very long lives.

The only successful project of the sort she's ever seen has been Cain's daughter, and the girl defected the very first time she's put that training to use and now devoted herself to doing the exact opposite of that she'd been created for.

Luthor, however, is adamant that Talia helm the project, and he is impatient for it to start. Talia cannot start it until she's found viable candidates, healthy, mentally stable young adults who've already begun applying. No amount of secondhand information will allow Talia to make an informed decision, and she cannot speak with the candidates from her current location.

A glance at her clock shows that it's gotten late, much later than she'd thought when she'd started, there's a plate of cooled curry at her arm, and she doesn't quite recall when it had been placed there. There are still a few hours before the time comes for her to give the boy his sedative, and she still has much to accomplish before she herself can retire for the night, but attempting to make progress with her Luthor Corp duties can do nothing but frustrate her, so she sets it aside to focus on other matters. She plugs in the status maps she'd downloaded from whilst in the city instead.

Her sister's bases are becoming increasingly harder to find. Ras had very few bases that Talia was not aware of, and in all likelihood, Nyssa is unaware of them as well, so those of hers Talia cannot find should be those Nyssa had built for herself before she's even reappeared before her family. Talia's men will have more luck in locating more targets if they limit the search to Germany, Poland and surrounding areas. There's still little news from out of Gotham, despite the city having become one of their chief battlefields.

This worries Talia, but reports of death have slowed instead of speeding up. Nyssa is, again, withdrawing, but from what? Something must be driving her back, something more than a loss of operatives. Talia's immediate subordinates have suggested moving resources from Gotham to the search for Nyssa's bases, but Talia doesn't trust her sisters quiet.

On paper, and with ink mixed in with her own blood, so as to be impossible to counterfeit, Talia writes out her orders. This is, despite the stakes being more dire in the short term, is by far less stressful than dealing with Luthor's business. Her men, she knows, are competent, will actually follow their orders to the letter without questioning her.

The work absorbs Talia and more hours pass, the sky has grown dark, but it's clear, the only clouds lingering on the horizon, rare stars twinkling outside her window. Pollution from the nearby city dims the stars here; they're not like those that had dazzled the skies of her childhood homeland. Talia let's herself feels the pang of nostalgia, for a moment, waits for it to pass instead of shunting it aside. The past is best left in the past, and there are matters more important that require her attention.

The clock reads at five minutes past eleven P.M, past time she should have given the boy his sedative.

She's barely had the time to rise from her chair when the earth seems to move, a deafening BOOM rattling the glass in its panes. Her only pause is to grasp a gun before she's out of the study, sprinting for the source.

There's no way Nyssa could have found this house, not even Talia's most trusted subordinates know of her location. Unless it's as she's feared and her sister has merely been biding her time. Talia hasn't heard from Jason since…

She hears laughter. 'Jason's' laughter. Loud and exuberant in the aftermath of the explosion.

When she makes it outside, he's laying spread out in the snow, still laughing besides a large, deep indentation in the snow. She comes to a stop in front of him; her arm crossed, and watches how his eyes travel up to her face.

"Hey Talia." He freezes for a moment, then curls around and hugs himself with his uninjured arm as his laughter picks up again. "I'm just…" he paused to catch his breath, "just clearing the driveway for tomorrow."

"Where did you find the materials to build that bomb?" She demands, pressing a hand against her brow.

"Uh…" He sits up, and she can see now that he's wet, the melted snow having soaked him. Before he speaks, a keyboard key drops from the sky, the letter 'B' lays staring up at her from the slushy snow at her feet. "Toldya it was broken." Jason averts his gaze, but doesn't seem cowed, in the least, picking at his bandages again.

When she looks close enough his eyes are greener in the dim light outside than they'd been since they'd come to the house.

"Get up Jason; you'll catch your death in this weather." Talia shakes her head and tucks the gun into her pockets; see's how his eyes follow the weapon. She'll have to hide it before she sleeps.

"Yeah, 'cause nobody wants that, huh?" Jason mutters darkly, rolling his eyes, but he stands and follows her back to the house anyway. Louder, he says. "I gotta practice, keep my skills sharp so I don't gotta relearn them."

"There are many things you could stand to relearn already." Talia says, holding back a groan, she debates with herself whether or not to count this as an improvement. He's still grinning, his eyes, thought dimmed, still brighter than usual.

"Hey, what about, if I went into demolitions?"

"I was under the impression you weren't speaking with me for the rest of this day."

Jason chuckles again, softer this time, but still genuine.

She'll decide after she's reheated her dinner and put him to bed, once she's sure he'll be out if trouble for the rest of the night.

O

O

O

The grunts for the League of Shadows are weak, pitifully so. It takes her no time at all to find and beat them into submission, but they are… One tried to grab her ankle and she side steps the hand easily before planting her foot on a pressure point at his neck. They are annoyingly loyal. She won't be getting anything out of these she knows. They worship their respective Demon's Heads, not her.

There's the rustling of fabric behind her, amateurish. He's still not accustomed to the cape. He doesn't spring forward, move to attack her, clever boy. "Shiva." He gives her a curt nod. "And to what do we owe this…" He drags his eyes over the limp forms of her opponents. "Honor."

"I'm sure you've heard by now that I am searching for The Batman." She says and removes her food from the grunt's throat. They would have been so much better had she supervised their training.

"I'm here." He says, his face almost too grim, his mouth is too young for it to seem anything other than unnatural in that cowl. He looks like a child playing with his father's work suit.

She can't help herself, she laughs, moves closer to him, he doesn't move back. It's a pleasant change from the competition she's come across thus far in this city. It really is too bad that he and the rest of his clan have bound themselves by that unfortunate rule.

"Do not test me, child, my business if of a great importance, I have no time for you games." There hasn't been time since Lady Nyssa had dared overstep her bounds and, unlike many times before. Shiva will not be playing along with these boys as she had before. "Where is he?"

"I'm the 'only' Batman." He says, squaring his jaw, it's almost cute, almost. "Only way you're going to find another one is if you go to another universe."

Shiva hums; it's hard to tell what of that partial truth is the lie. For a certainty she knows he hasn't died, she also knows he will be the only one with the information she seeks. "Maybe my daughter will know better, after she cancelled our meeting I would hope she…" Shiva ducks under the swing and her hand strikes a point at his side that would have felled him if not for the layers of armor covering his body.

As it is, the blow sends the boy back; he takes it well, stops his momentum with a flip and manages to face her on his feet. Impressive, but she knows she could have taught him better. "Leave her out of whatever agenda the league is chasing Shiva, I'm warning you.

She charges him again, strikes only at the most obvious of the opening's he leaves, lets him land a few blows as well, he 'does' land a few himself. That's all the leeway she's willing to give him, and she throws him against the wall.

"If you care for her continued well being you will be more cooperative, Little Robin." She keeps her tone level as she approaches, a contrast to his heavy breaths. "He is not dead, or this war would not be taking place here, he is not injured or he would have made his appearance, it is well known that nothing could keep him from his self destructive mission to this corrosive mass grave of a city."

He doesn't answer her, just glares and brushes away the trail of blood dribbling from his lip.

"Or could it?" She stops walking, turns from the boy. "But what injury could have been so damning it sent the Batman cowering in the shadows?"

"Shut it, Sandra." He says, and she resists splitting his skull on the alley wall.

"Watch yourself, and watch the girl." She warns before she leaves, he doesn't stop her, there wouldn't be a point, she's already gotten what she needs from this place, and he knows it.

The last anything was seen of the Batman, had been that night with the Joker and the boy. Lady Talia's precious little pet, whose corpse Shiva had visited barely an hour before his handler had betrayed her sister for his life. Shiva doesn't think about the stench of decay, or the battered state of the corpse while she leaves the city, the air of discomfort around it.

In this war of the league, there can be only one winner, and only one side has such a prime, well-advertised avenue that Shiva could exploit. It helped of course, that Lady Talia was not the one to order death of the one person who might have been able to fulfill Shiva's only wish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luthors project is another weird thing that happened in comics around this time, what was with the dc universe after infinite crisis?


	11. Tea

The two weeks Luthor had given Talia to return to Metropolis expires in less than five days. Luthor has ‘generously’ made the penthouse above the Lex Corp Tower available for Talia’s use , it’s convenient in that she can still monitor and keep Jason within easy reach once while she’s attending to her duties as CEO without needing to bring him with her to her workplace. Less convenient is the fact that the wide glass windows and very public nature of the building has made satisfactory security arrangement’s a veritable nightmare.

Automated defenses can only be trusted so far, but the human element in having many bodyguards on sight could be just as unreliable. Talia’s had no lack of experience with that.

She hasn’t slept since the previous day, has to leave for the city early on this day if she has any hope of not skipping this night’s rest too. She’s not sure there will be enough time to make sure of the security before they leave Spain. Only five days, and she still hasn’t told Jason they will be leaving.

The sooner she gets that done, the longer he will have to prepare himself for the change of locale. Talia copies the her latest drafts of the security plan onto a drive and leaves her study to make sure he’s actually gotten out of his bed. It couldn’t hurt to get his input on them, make some use of the expertise he’d let waste away otherwise.

He’s not shambling blearily out of his room, nor has he slipped back into slumber when she eyes the mound of blankets on the bed – she’ll have to make sure he straightens them when they return in the evening. That’s not to say he’s awake.

She finds him in the kitchen, she’s pleased to note that the bowl of porridge that had served as his breakfast is empty, a hand wrapped loosely round the glass that rests besides his head, barely a quarter way full. His head that’s propped on his folded arms, deeply asleep. Even with the lingering tension, this is peaceful as she’s his face since long before he’d gone back to Gotham.

Too early for him to have completely shaken off the effects of the sedative she’d given him the previous night. Talia wakes him gently, regretting that she cannot let him sleep here, even more so when he flinches back at her touch and almost falls from his seat.

”Hm.. wha…” He mutters unintelligibly his hands gripping the table where he’d caught himself even while he scans the room with half-lidded eyes that eventually settle on her, then move to the glass of tea. “M’startin’ to really hate this stuff.” He pokes the glass while running his other hand over his face.

”It’s necessary.” Talia slides the glass closer to him and his tired scowl deepens. “Hurry now”.

He huffs out another sigh and slowly picks the glass up. “Nd temporary, huh?”

Talia doesn’t answer, notices the way he stalls because of it. There is no definitive answer to that question, and she is not so cruel as to offer hope falsely. “There is a security matter I would appreciate your insight on.”

In the car, he falls asleep again before he looks at the plans. She leaves him until they’ve reached what has become her office.

*******

_’Miss Head the project is ready to commence, has been ready for weeks. I’m sure I speak for every member of this board when I say we are eager to see the results of the trials. Instead we are paying those researchers, an exorbitant amount, I might add to, to play minesweeper while the project languishes for no apparent reason…’_

”I have made my reasoning more than apparent on many occasions and will continue to do so. Your department has been known in the past to mishandle the human element of trials such as these and this company’s reputation has fallen too far to decline as it stands.” Due in no small part to Talia’s machinations at one point, but those watching her from the boardroom across the world are wise not to mention that. “Under my leadership there will be none of that nonsense. I will arrive soon enough to supervise the project, until then you would do well to take this time to be certain that your researchers are well and truly prepared for my inspection.”

 _’If it’s the public relations you’re worried about, you can rest assured that my department has several contingencies in place should Mister Floros’s department fail to control its subjects.’_ The president of Luthor’s communications department is lounging in his seat, scrolling absently through the stream of information he manages for the company. He reminds her far too much of Luthor for her to be comfortable around him, but she will admit that he does well in his position. If it were only Public Relations and not the fates of dozens the adolescents, Talia might have left him to it with very little oversight.

”I’m more interested in your department’s progress on our recent agricultural venture.” Talia says. Greenhouses, but on a larger scale, one would have thought this would be a relatively simple thing to have a community approve. It really is a testament to the distrust afforded the company that they are having trouble with this.

Here the man shrugs and sets his tablet aside. _‘It’s hard to plan for that when Real Estate hasn’t settles on where they want to put the things, but we have submitted a series of sites where it might be most welcomed. I’ve already submitted our suggestions on that front.’_

 _’We’re still waiting on budget approval.’_ The woman in charge of land acquisitions says, tapping her nails against the table and looking at the board director expectantly.

 _’Approval we cannot grant until we know just how much the Everyman Project is going to cost us.’_ He directs his gaze at Talia.

”Five more days.” She repeats, the spike of a headache forming between her eyes, she subtly takes in a deep breath and holds it a moment before continuing. “Surely you are qualified enough to keep this company afloat that long.” There’s a tap at the door before they can answer her and she holds up a hand, almost sending a silent prayer of gratitude. “I thinks it’s past time we broke for lunch, if you would all reconvene in half an hour we will discuss the budget in more detail once we’re all refreshed.” She tips her head slightly in reverence she does not feel, and disconnects the feed as the door swings open.

”Anyone executed?” Jason’s appearance is noticeably more disheveled than it had been when he’d left more than an hour ago.

”To the great detriment of mankind, no.” She says and lets herself lean back in her seat as she turns to face him. “What trouble did you involve yourself in?”

His shrug fails at appearing nonchalant when he sets a steaming paper cup and a white bag bearing the logo of a café she’d visited a few times. “Don’t remember.” He tries to brush away the smear of blood at his cheek. “Think I got lost.”

Talia hums and wets a napkin with the water she’d kept at her desk, then she motions him closer and clears away the blood herself. If it had been something serious, a gaggle of Nyssa’s loyalists for instance, the damage would have been more obvious. Still, she’ll rest easier when they’re in Metropolis and street thugs are less of a concern. As soon as she’s done Jason draws back and scrubs the remaining water from his cheek, his scowl gone even deeper as he grumbles under his breath.

”And you remembered to feed yourself?” She asks, taking up the coffee, still warm, so he ‘got lost’, heading there and not on the trek back.

He grimaces, but pulls a partly squashed sandwich wrapped in cellophane from his pocket. She raises a brow at the state of the thing, but if he’s confident enough to attempt something more substantial than nutritional gruel, she’s not going to discourage it.

”Looked at the plans.” He says, carefully extricating his sandwich from its cellophane wrapping. “Think I can add a couple more layers of alarms over the others, offline, so they can disconnect em remotely, and replace the bulbs in the show lights with red solar one’s, easier to replace than kryptonite.”

Talia’s not sure how many times he thinks they are going to have problems with Superman for that to be necessary, but there are worse things than being over prepared. She nods along as he goes through more of his suggested additions and reworkings of the Lex Tower penthouse security, only objecting to the poisonous gas, for obvious reasons, while she smears cream cheese over an olive bagel.

Jason had reacted only with dull surprise when she told him when and where they’d be moving on from Spain, more for the latter than the former she’s sure, but he’s been working on the security plans since she gave him the use of another laptop. A laptop he thankfully hasn’t seen fit to attempt hacking as of yet, she’s still spotting pieces of the last one lying about in front of the house.

”And if I got time to do some rewiring, I can… I can…” The sandwich is a third of the way finished when he slowly sets it aside, it’s just plan peanut butter and Talia doesn’t know why, but she expected he’s have gotten something more flavorful. His face screws up and brings he knuckles of one hand up to his mouth, the shakily up to his brow.

”Jason.” Talia prods, dropping the paper bag and cup that are the remnants of her own lunch into a wastebasket. “The wiring.”

”Uh.” Jason’s unfocused eyes snap back to clarity and he shakes his head, as he starts rubbing at his eyes. “M’tired. Think I just gotta…”

Talia’s computer beeps, the screen lighting up again with an incoming communication, the board members, thirty minutes to the second from when Talia had called the break. She pushes back a surge of irritation and forces her expression to relax before she reopens the channel. Jason has already vanished by the time it connects.

Once Talia’s in Metropolis, she vows she will make them wish each and every day that she had continued to manage the company’s affairs from afar.

*******

Nyssa’s presence in Gotham, as well as elsewhere, has continued to diminish. Reports on why are inconclusive, but a great many of Talia’s field commanders are sure it is the work of Gotham’s Batclan. The most likely, most logical of conclusions surely. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have resisted the idea, would have contacted Bruce, or Richard, whoever it is that has donned that cursed cowl, and inquire. 

It’s what her people have expected she would do from the moment outsider involvement in her and Nyssa’s war had become known. Thus far Talia has been adamant in her refusal. Her only word on the matter being that this is a league affair and shall remain so. She tells them that it was a mistake to ever allow the league to be so intertwined with the Batclan, and that under her rule, it will be no more. She tells them they have both the power and the dignity to handle their own affairs. She tells them that the Bats will no longer enjoy the privileges they’d enjoyed under her father, privileges they’d spurned from the onset.

Talia does not say these things, makes these decisions based on malice. As much as a crazed, only haphazardly buried part of her wishes to deliver the Batclan the still, cold body of one of their children, covered in bruising and blood, make them feel the soul rending grief she had felt when she’d sat by Jason’s corpse, such cruelty will gain her nothing. Even in the case that it would prove to be of some benefit, she would not allow herself to dwell on such thoughts.

Talia brands the Batclan as potential enemies in the case of their involvement for a much simpler reason.

Reports about whatever is tearing through Nyssa’s ranks is searching for a far more conclusive than the identities of the perpetrator, the location of the body that was pulled from the fires of that wretched building. For Jason. The very same commanders who’d suggested Talia contact the bat on their involvement, suggest she reveal his location to them, to gain an ally.

She shoves those suggestions into her desk drawer, flinging them aside as though they were as harmful to her physically as they were otherwise. Unread but for the barest of their contents, the only reply she can give is that there will be **no** alliance with the Batclan, not with any of them, for whatever reason. For the sake of the league, for keeping their ranks pure and strong, and she sites sources of the many operatives they’d lost over the years to the weakness mixing with so-called **heroes**. That is her answer, it sounds perfectly valid and dignified and it is all she intends to give. 

When she’s done she packages her orders for delivery and rests her head in her shaking hands, trying and failing to control the trembling in her body that she’s been growing all too accustomed to since she’d taken Jason from Nyssa’s compound. She fights back the images, the sounds of the death she can see and hear and **feel** in as much detail as if she’d been there when it had occurred.

Once it’s passed and she’s calmed herself, she goes to find him, and make sure that he hasn’t attempted to render all of her work useless again. It’s near time she gives him his tea.

*******

Metropolis. They’re going to Metropolis, where Clark Kent lives. Where Superman flies around. **Superman**. Batman’s best friend Superman. The idea of it, Jason knows should turn his stomach. He’s pretty sure that when he gets there **something** will happen, though he’s not sure what. Right now he doesn’t feel anything like that.

What he feels is cold, but that’s because he’s lying in the snow. He feels bored, because, again, he’s lying in the snow, not really doing anything. He should get out, find something else to do, go over the security again, whittle a batarang and burn it. It doesn’t matter what it is he does, as long as it’s something. But he doesn’t feel like getting up and out of the snow, or finishing the shoveling of the snow that he’d been send out here to do in the first place.

Jason’s dug his own grave this time. Not quite six feet under, but deep enough to serve its purpose. He's also fashioned a gravestone at its head. Just a rectangular thing with his name engraved across it in bold, blocky letters. He’s tried for an inscription at the bottom, but there were no utensils lying about that he could use for lettering that small and he wasn’t determined enough to go out to the forest in search. So all the stone says is _JASON TODD_ , not like he’s done much in this short life – it’s been what? A couple months now? – to be remembered for, and everything he’s done in the other lives seems so far away.

His grave is cold, like everything else in this whole damned place, at least it’s not snowing anymore, these mountains like snow the way Gotham likes rain, and Jason knows for a fact which of the two he prefers. You don’t have to **shovel** rain.

Jason’s quiet as he lies there, watching the grey clouds move sluggishly across the sky. It’s almost peaceful with his mind dulled as much as it is; he can hear her coming long before he sees her.

The crunching of her footfalls in the fresh snow breaking through the quiet, they pause at the side of the driveway, and start up again a barely a second later, making a beeline for his position. Her face appears above him, she’s not scowling like he thought she’d be, and the entirely unimpressed look on her face isn’t half as satisfying.

“This ridiculous behavior is beneath you, boy.” She tusks at him. “Such a childish attempt at avoiding such a simple task.

His task, Jason can’t keep his face from scrunching up, his **chore** , shoveling snow out of that fucking driveway. It’s pointless, the car is heavy terrain, and there’s not that much snow anyway. “But I’m dead.” He says, his eyes catching on the glass in her hand, it hasn’t gotten that late, right? He swears he can still taste the last dosage on the roof of his mouth.

Her lip twitches, but she doesn’t smile. Jason counts it as a victory anyway. “And it is truly a tragic fate, now climb out of there and finish clearing the driveway before the last light has faded.”

”Dead people don’t clear driveways, they’re **found** in driveways.” Jason huffs, loudly and makes sure it’s telegraphed very well, before he sits up in the three foot hole he’s dug himself, and pulls him out of it. “And there is a porch light.” He brushes the snow of his pants.

“You wouldn’t have needed the porch light if you hadn't taken the time out for this game.” She presses the glass into Jason’s hands. “But I suppose it has grown late, you’ll finish it come morning.”

”Thought I was done with the morning chores.” There’s no more or less tea in the glass than usual, but it still seems too full to him. 

”That was when you actually finished them later.” She doesn’t watch to make sure he drinks it; just motions to the he’d discarded as she goes back into the house. She knows he’ll drink it anyway, and he does. “Put that away before you retire.”

It’s cold, just like everything else in this place, everything else he’s eaten or drank since, since always now, isn’t it. He drinks the tea. There isn’t any flavor to betray that there’s been anything added to it, no particles in the clear amber liquid. And that cold will freeze over whatever else Jason would feel otherwise, wont it? 

”Not temporary.” He mutters to himself and picks up the shovel, dragging the tool along with him to the shed.

*******

It’s not out of malice or distrust that he does it. Nor is it any of the other dozens of reasons he could have come up with if he’d sat down and tried to write out a list. It’s just that day when he wakes up, when Talia wakes him up like she does every day, like he hadn’t needed to be before since the last time Alfred woke him up for school, when Talia puts the glass at it bedside and leaves, he looks at the amber liquid, and he doesn’t even hate it, not really. But he thinks he should.

He sits up, with his head groggy, unable to think in the ways he used to before. He picks the cool class up with hands that hurt from the pressure he’d put on the pen he’d used to mostly tear up a notebook when he couldn’t right his thoughts enough to put them down in clear words the night before.

He’s constantly tired, mostly dazed out. He doesn’t feel enough, and he doesn’t feel like himself anymore.

Logically, he knows it might not be the fault of the tea; it might just be that his head is too fucked up for anything about it to be clear ever again. He was plenty fucked up without it, and the Lazarus pit causes insanity, and Jason’s never been able to comprehend those kinds of people, he can’t quite comprehend himself either right now. 

When he carries the glass over to the sink and tilts it’s, watches the tea slosh over the side, dribble slowly over his hand, icy cold, enough to send shivers up his arm. When he watches the drops fall onto the marble, swirl down the drain. When he stops, the glass only half-empty, enough that any kind of withdrawal won’t affect him to badly, he gets a flash of a needle and pale, almost blue skin. He doesn’t understand this either, doesn’t know what he feels, or if it’s anything, but he knows there’s something there.

Something he might feel later, if he can feel more like himself, if he can **think** like himself again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, finally got to use all that research on medications.


End file.
